At Home in Many Worlds

This volume is dedicated to one of the founding figures of Israeli Chinese studies, Professor Irene Eber of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. It assembles more than two dozen essays by colleagues from all over the world that reflect not only the wide range of her scholarly interests, but above all the fields of research which would not have been established without her and where her contributions will remain. Accordingly, the section "Philosophy in China and Intellectual History" discusses the thorny and complex process of 'organizing the heritage', from the earliest constructed traditions in Han times around the beginning of our era, up to the debates on modernization in present-day China. After an excursion in "Chinese Literature," much space is devoted to "Translating the Bible in China," a topic on which her numerous studies have proved seminal and that deals with Chinese perceptions. As its complement, perceptions of China in systematic and historical perspective are at the core of the section devoted to "Jewish Life and Letters in the World." The contributions share their approach of paying particular attention to the translation processes strictly speaking and to the hermeneutical process of understanding across time and space more generally. A comprehensive list of publications by Irene Eber concludes the volume.