About Dr David Pattinson

Originally from Melbourne, Australia, I joined the Department of East Asian Studies in August 2000, having previously worked at Lingnan University in Hong Kong and the University of Auckland in New Zealand. My PhD was a study of letter-writing in pre-modern China, focusing on the letter collections which became popular in the late Ming and early Qing. Since then my interest in letters has broadened to include a wider interest in social networks in late imperial China, with a current focus on scholars and writers in Ningdu and Jianchang in Jiangxi province in the early Qing. I am also interested in local history, particularly responses to the destruction and cultural loss which accompanied the Ming-Qing transition, and again mainly with reference to Jiangxi.

However, recently more of my attention has been focused on a project examining how bees have been represented in Chinese culture, as well as on the history of beekeeping and the uses of bee products in China up to the nineteenth century.

I have non-research interests in the guqin, the seven-stringed Chinese zither, which I could play once but am a bit rusty now, and in the history of Chinese agriculture, particularly fruit and vegetable growing, though my own attempts to grow Chinese vegetables have been a mixed success.

In September 2009 I became the Treasurer of the British Association for Chinese Studies (BACS) [http://www.bacsuk.org.uk].

Recent Activities

• Appointed to the working party for the National Justice and Peace Network Conference 2012, to be organised by Cultural Exchange with China. The conference theme will be the role of the Church in China today.
• Presented a paper entitled 'Peng Shiwang's Social Network as Symbolic Capital', British Association for Chinese Studies conference, University of Bristol, 8-9 September 2010.
• Chaired a panel at the 'Networks in Chinese Society' workshop, Pembroke College, University of Oxford, 13-14 April 2010.
• Invited to present a paper entitled 'Bees in Chinese Culture' at the Research Training in Old Chinese: History and Historiography workshop, University of Cambridge, 24-28 March 2010.

Key Publications

• 'Which Destruction: Responses to Destruction in Seventeenth-Century China.' In The Archaeology of Destruction, edited by Lila Rakoczy. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008, 90-106.
• 'The market for Letter Collections in Seventeenth-Century China.' Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 28 (2006): 127-159.
• 'Privacy and Letter Writing in Han and Six Dynasties China.' In Bonnie S. McDougall & Anders Hansson eds. Chinese Concepts of Privacy. Leiden: Brill, 2002, 97-118.
• 'Zhou Lianggong and Chidu xinchao: Genre and Political Marginalisation in the Ming-Qing Transition.' East Asian History 20 (December 2000): 61-82.
• 'The Chidu in Late Ming and Early Qing China.' Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Australian National University, 1998.
• Yu, Feng. 'Chronicle of a City.' Translated by David Pattinson. In Martha P. Cheung ed., Hong Kong Collage: Contemporary Stories and Writing. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1998, 18-33.
• Letters by Xie Zhaozhi, Chen Hongxu and Wang Shizhen. Translated by David Pattinson. In Renditions 41-42 (Special 21st anniversary issue: Classical Letters, Spring and Autumn 1994), 92-93, 98-101, 114-117.

Consultancies

• BBC 'Talk Mandarin' introductory Chinese language series (2000).
• Dictionary compilation with a major British dictionary publisher.

Teaching

I mainly teach in the areas of the cultural history of China (pre-modern and modern), Chinese literature (pre-modern and Republican period), and Chinese-English translation.

Undergraduate

• EAST1051 History and Culture of Imperial China: this module provides an introduction to the philosophy, society, literature and arts of China from early times to the mid Qing dynasty (Semesters 1 & 2). It includes the single semester modules EAST1052 (Semester 1) and East 1053 (Semester 2).
• EAST1080 Chinese Culture in the Twentieth Century: this module looks at issues such as philosophy, literature, the position of women, film and education in China's turbulent twentieth century (team taught in Semester 2).
• EAST3120 Classical Chinese: this module offers an introduction to the basic grammar and syntax of Classical Chinese, as well as the opportunity to examine texts from a range of Classical Chinese genres in English (runs in alternate years; not running in 2009-10).
• EAST3080 Chinese Literature 1912-1949: reading selected short stories and essays from the period 1912-1949 in Chinese (Semester 1).
• EAST3011 Chinese 3: Translation and Composition: I teach the Chinese-English translation part of this module (Semester 2).

Postgraduate

• MODL5321M Specialised Chinese-English Translation: students taking translation and interpreting MA's in the Centre for Translation Studies.
• MODL5302M Extended Translations: supervised long translation project from Chinese to English as part of the MA in Applied Translation Studies and MA in Interpreting and Translation Studies.

PhD Supervision

Currently co-supervising PhD dissertation 'Measure Words in Learning and Teaching Chinese as a Second Language'.

I have co-supervised a PhD on Peer Evaluation of Interpreters and one on representations of China in 19th century English Literature.

Guidance on PhDs can be found in the Research Postgraduate pages.