This course explores the contribution of savants and
proto-scientists, a few of them residing in Rome like Athanasius
Kircher,SJ, to the production and transmission of knowledge about East
Asia during the XVII century.   Selected topics in the history of
science will be explored during the second semester.  

The
student will know the contribution of Jesuit savants, like Athanasius
Kircher, Jean Baptiste du Halde, and others, to the production and
circulation of knowledge about China in early modern Europe; he/she will
be able to place this body of knowledge within the larger context of
the scientific debates of the time, mainly those concerning cosmology,
diversity, technological mastery and scientific primacy.