Thorsten J. Pattberg

Thorsten J. Pattberg

Research Fellow, Peking University

Dr. Thorsten J. Pattberg (裴德思 Pei Desi) is a German writer, linguist, and cultural critic. 

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He attended Edinburgh University, Fudan University, Tokyo University, and Harvard University, and earned his doctorate degree from The Institute of World Literature at Peking University. He studied under the guiding stars of Ji Xianlin, Gu Zhengkun, and Tu Weiming, whom he considers his spiritual masters. 

Dr. Pattberg is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, University of Tokyo; and a former Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies, Peking University. He is the author of four monographs 'The East-West dichotomy,' 'Shengren,' 'Holy Confucius,' and 'Inside Peking University,' and some of his representative articles are 'Language hegemony – It’s shengren, stupid!,' 'Long into the West’s dragon business,' 'China: Lost in Translation,' and 'The end of translation.' 

“All cultures have their legitimacy and should be respected. But just because they are all legitimate, this does not mean they all achieve the same degree of excellence.” –GU Zhengkun […]
Following up on the post Zero Translation – If you will allow; my thoughts on the recent over-the-top Bloomberg’s China’s War on English – by Dexter Roberts: “Chinese authorities are waging a war […]
Beida vs Tsinghua – China’s world class universities and global players BEIJING– Beida and Tsinghua are the two most prominent universities in China, a country of 1.35 billion people. (There […]
Young trailblazers all over China mix English words and Chinese characters to modernize China’s 3300 years old writing system. Conservatives want to stop this movement. No need, says Dragons and […]
LOVERS of the Big Think will rejoice at hearing about the world’s largest migration of brain: BEIJING – Thousands of philosophers are expected to descend upon China’s capital in 2018 in […]
TAIPEI/TOKYO – What is this East-Asian obsession with blades and stabbings that has perverted these otherwise harmonious quarters of Confucian legacy? The knife seems to be the preferred device of […]
Into the Bestiary Business Should Chinese creatures be incorporated into Anglo-Saxon parlance, and if so, where to draw the line in number and color? This goes beyond linguistic pedantry and […]