政大外語學院「世界古典文化研究團隊」和英國語文學系EARN團隊(Enlightenment and Romanticism Network)將連合舉辦一場演講，由Dr. Dijkstra和大家聊聊孔子在西方如何被詮譯並激起東西對話，演講題目和摘要如下，地點在政大研究大樓203，歡迎各位參加。
Speaker: Dr. Trude Dijkstra
Time: 10:30-12:00, March 9th, 2026 (Mon.)
Venue: The Research Building, Room 203 (研究大樓2樓203室)
Title: Confucius in Letters: Genre and the Making of Confucius in Eighteenth-Century Europe
Abstract
In the eighteenth century, Confucius became a central figure in European intellectual debates. He appeared not only in Jesuit missionary scholarship but also in novels and periodical publications. This lecture focuses on Jean-Baptiste d’Argens’ Lettres chinoises (1739–1740), a fictional correspondence between Chinese travellers that offered European readers a critical mirror of their own society. Drawing on missionary sources while adopting the flexible structure of the epistolary novel, Lettres chinoises presents Confucius as both moral authority and philosophical interlocutor. At the same time, its instalment format and engagement with contemporary controversies give it the immediacy of news and the reflective quality of travel writing. By examining this hybrid text, the lecture argues that genre and print culture played a decisive role in shaping European perceptions of Confucianism, revealing how philosophical traditions were reformulated as they moved across cultures.