Location: 长乐路325号，近陕西南路 325 Changle Rd, Near Shaanxi South Rd，Shanghai, China
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Marco Polo and the Heresy of Evil: Meeting Yuan dynasty Fuzhou’s secretive religious group
Around 1290 CE, the famed Venetian merchant and adventurer Marco Polo was visiting the Southern Chinese province of Fujian. Only recentlyconquered by the Mongol army and a hotbed of frequent rebellion, this province’s countryside was infested with tigers and unidentified foxlike rodents, while its coastal cities, bustling hubs on the Maritime Silk Road, were among the most cosmopolitan places on earth. In one such city, Fuzhou, Marco and his uncle Maffio ran into what they emotionally identified as fellow Christians. But the Polos were almost certainly wrong. This mysterious religious group were most likely Manichaeans, the easternmost offshoot of a world religion founded by Mani, the third-century mystic from Sasanian Mesopotamia, the self-styled Apostle of Light.
This talk will closely examine this fascinating and unique episode describing the Polos’ encounter with the Fuzhou “Christians”. We will first consider it in relation to Marco’s book’s complex textual history. We will then explore how recent spectacular discoveries of textual and artistic Manichaean artefacts in Fujian shed new light on some salient aspects of Marco’s account. We will finally speculate about Marco’s reaction had he known the religious group he helped gain institutional support from the Mongol Court were not fellow Christians but distantly related coreligionists of the Cathars, Medieval Europe’s Heresy of Evil.
Speaker’s Bio:
LIAssociate Professor at Shanghai Normal University
Paolo Visigalli is Associate Professor at Shanghai Normal University (SHNU), Department of World History. His main area of research is Indian and Chinese Buddhism, with a burgeoning interest in Chinese Manichaeism. He holds a PhD in South Asian Studies from the University of Cambridge. Prior to joining SHNU within the framework of Thousand Talents Plan, he was a Postdoc at the University of Munich and the Max Plack Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, and taught Sanskrit and South Asian history at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.
*** Members of the DKU community are invited to attend at a discounted rate of 60 RMB including one drink.
Come explore history and engage in thought-provoking discussions!
Date: 2/20 (Thursday) 6:30-7:30 pm
Asian and North African francophone literatures share not only a common language but are both fertile grounds where writers explore the experiences of the self, families, and society at large. In these literatures, writing functions as an archaeological device to make sense of the obstructive social processes that make life excessively demanding and complex. This orientation positions Asian and North African francophone narratives as some the most significant archives of the individual’s journey in and out of the private or public sphere in the modern era.
