CURRICULUM VITAE AND PUBLICATIONS OF DR. C. CULLEN
Updated: December 2004
Personal details
Full name: Christopher Cullen
Address for correspondence:
Needham Research Institute,
8 Sylvester Road,
Cambridge CB3 9AF,
United Kingdom
Telephone 01223 311545
Email: c.cullen@nri.org.uk
Nationality: British
Academic qualifications:
M.A. (Oxford) in Engineering Science.
Postgraduate Certificate in Education (Oxford).
Ph.D. (London) in Classical Chinese.
M.A. (Cambridge) by incorporation.
Present post
Director, Needham Research Institute
The Needham Research Institute (NRI) is devoted to the promotion of research
into the history of science, technology and medicine in East Asia. It welcomes
visiting scholars from all over the world to its purpose built buildings
in Sylvester Road, a few yards from Clare Hall. The Institute’s principal
research resource is its unparalleled library, which has grown from the personal
research collection of the great sinologist and historian of science Joseph
Needham (1900-1994). Full details of the NRI and its activities are available
from its website at www.nri.org.uk.
Membership of professional bodies, etc.
Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society (was Council member for three years)
Founded History of Science section of the British Association for the Advancement
of Science, and served as Recorder for three years.
Member, International Society for the History of East Asian Science, Technology
and Medicine (served as Secretary in the three years from the Society's foundation).
Honours
Honorary Professor, Chinese Academy of Sciences (2002)
Visiting Professor, Inner Mongolia Normal University (2004)
Visiting Professor, Tianjin Normal University (2004)
Visiting Professor, Shandong University (2004)
Visiting Professor, Chinese University of Hong Kong (2004)
Affiliations
Affiliated Research Scholar, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge.
Research
My research interests flow from a broad interest in the history of science
in China, seen in its widest social and intellectual context. I am currently
working intensively on projects in the areas of ancient mathematics and mathematical
astronomy, but also have ongoing interests in the history of medicine.
Editing
As Chairman of the Publications Board of the Needham Research Institute,
I am General Editor of the Science and Civilisation in China series (Cambridge
University Press) and of the Needham Research Institute Studies series (Routledge
Curzon). I have so far seen eight volumes of Science and Civilisation in
China to the press, as well as five volumes of NRI Studies. Other volumes
of both series are at various stages of active preparation. I have recently
launched a new series, under the name of Needham Research Institute Working
Papers, designed to promote the rapid circulation of research results whose
formal appearance might otherwise be delayed.
Christopher Cullen: Publications
(a) Books
Monographs:
Astronomy and Mathematics in Ancient China: the Zhou bi suan jing Cambridge 1996
This is a translation and study of an ancient Chinese text of c. 100 AD,
the first of the 'Ten Mathematical Classics", with full introductory discussions
of the nature of early Chinese astronomical and mathematical thought and
practice.
The Dragon's Ascent Hong Kong 2001
This is a substantial and fully illustrated historical introduction to Chinese
culture, with a perspective broadly based on the work of Joseph Needham.
It is designed for a wide but well-informed readership, and was written to
accompany the film series of the same name.
Medicine in Mediaeval China: the Dunhuang Manuscripts (written and edited with Vivienne Lo, RoutledgeCurzon, 2004)
This is a collective work, the outcome of a major international collaborative
project to study and analyse the medical material from the Dunhuang cave
library recovered by Aurel Stein and others at the beginning of the last
century.
The Suàn shù shū
筭數書 ‘Writings on reckoning’: a translation
of a Chinese mathematical collection of the second century BC, with explanatory
commentary Needham Research Institute Working Papers no.1, Needham
Research Institute, Cambridge 2004
This the first work in a Western language to deal at length with the topic
of the earliest known Chinese mathematical text, excavate from a tomb closed
in 186 BC. It contains an introductory essay, a full translation and
commentary, together with a critical edition of the text.
Edited:
Since February 1992 I have been Chairman of the editorial board of the Science
and Civilisation in China series, which was founded by Joseph Needham and
is published by Cambridge University Press. It is my responsibility to deal
with all scholarly aspects of the commissioning, planning, execution and
quality control of this ongoing multi-volume work, which is the major British
based publishing project in Chinese studies. All the parts of SCC volumes
are important and substantial contributions to their field, and are publishing
projects of some complexity. Parts which have been seen to press under my
management comprise:
VOL. V. Chemistry and Chemical Technology
Pt. 6. Military Technology: Missiles and Sieges. Joseph Needham, Robin D.S.
Yates, with the collaboration of Krzysztof Gawlikowski and others (1994)
Pt. 12: Ceramic Technology. Rose Kerr (2004)
Pt. 13: Mining. Peter Golas (1999)
VOL. VI. Biology and Biological Technology
Pt. 3. Agroindustries and Forestry. Christopher.A. Daniels and Nicholas .K. Menzies (1996)
Pt. 5. Fermentations and Food Science. H.T. Huang (2000)
Pt. 6. Medicine. Joseph Needham and Lu Gwei-djen, edited by Nathan Sivin (2000)
VOL. VII. The Social Background
Pt. 1. Language and Logic. Christof Harbsmeier (1998)
Pt. 2. Reflections and General Conclusions. Joseph Needham and others. (2004)
I also edit the Needham Research Institute Studies monograph series, of which five volumes have so far appeared:
Astronomy and mathematics in ancient China: the Zhou bi suan jing
Christopher Cullen
Cambridge University Press 1996
Aristotle in China: Language, Categories and Translation
Robert Wardy
Cambridge University Press 2000
Innovation in Chinese Medicine
(Ed.) Elisabeth Hsü
Cambridge University Press 2001
A Chinese Physician - Wang Ji and the 'Stone Mountain medical case histories'
Joanna Grant
RoutledgeCurzon, 2002
Chinese Mathematical Astronomy
Ho Peng Yoke
RoutledgeCurzon 2003
Medieval Chinese Medicine: the Dunhuang medical manuscripts
(Eds.) Vivienne Lo and Christopher Cullen
RoutledgeCurzon 2004
Medicine of Revolution: Chinese Medicine in Early Communist China (1945-1963) Kim Taylor
RoutledgeCurzon 2004
Other volumes in this series are in active preparation.
(b) Articles and book chapters
(excluding book reviews and encyclopaedia articles etc.)
'A Chinese Eratosthenes of the flat earth: a study of a fragment of cosmology
in Huai nan tzu' Bull. S.O.A.S. (1976) 39 pt.1, 106-127.
'Can we find the Star of Bethlehem in Far Eastern Records?' Quarterly Journal
of the Royal Astronomical Society (1979) 20, 153-159
'Was there a Maunder Minimum?' Nature (1980) 283, 427-8
'Joseph Needham on Chinese Astronomy' Past & Present (1980) no. 87, May, 39–53.
'Some further points on the shih' Early China (1981) 6, 31-46
'The Han cosmic model: a response to Donald Harper' Early China (1982) 7, 130-133
'An eighth century Chinese table of tangents' Chinese Science (1982) 5, 1-33
'Science and medicine in China' chapter 22, pp 476-499 in Information Sources
for the History of Science and Medicine, (1983), Butterworths, London.
'On the term hsuan chi and the three-lobed jade discs' pt. 1 (pt. 2 by A.S.L. Farrer) Bull. S.O.A.S. (1983) 46:1, 53-76
'Understanding': chapter on Chinese science and medicine in The Heart of the Dragon (1984), Collins/Harvill, London.
'The science/technology interface in seventeenth-century China: Song Yingxing
on qi and the wu xing' Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African
Studies Vol LIII, Part 2, 1990, 295-318
'Song Yingxing on astronomy', pp 55-70 in Tsui-Hua Yang and Yi-long Huang
(eds) Science and Technology in Modern China Institute of Modern History,
Academia Sinica, Taipei (1991).
'Halley's comet and the "ghost" event of 10 B.C.'; Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1991) 32, 113-119
'Appendix A: A Chinese Eratosthenes of the Flat Earth' pp. 269-290 + 343-345
in John S. Major Heaven and Earth in Early Han Thought, New York, State University
of New York, (1993).
'Patients and Healers in Late Imperial China: Evidence from the Jinpingmei'
History of Science vol 31 pt. 2 (June 1993), pp. 99-150
'The Chou pi suan jing' pp. 33-38 & 'The Chiu chang suan shu' pp. 16-23,
both in: M.A.N. Loewe (ed.) Early Chinese Texts: a Bibliographical Guide
(Early China monograph no.2) Berkeley, Society for the Study of early China,
(1993).
'Motivations for Scientific Change in Ancient China: Emperor Wu and the Grand
Inception Astronomical Reforms of 104 BC' Journal for the History of Astronomy
vol 24 pt.3, pp. 185-203.
‘Song Yingxing: a Chinese Diderot in search of working space’ pp.31-44 in
China and the West: Proceedings of the International Colloquium
Royal Academy of Science and Letters, Brussels 1994
‘How can we do the comparative history of mathematics? Proof in Liu Hui and
the Zhou bi ‘Philosophy and the History of Science vol.4 no.1, April 1995
pp. 11-49.
‘Yale on China: Parker and Hume on Chinese Medicine’ 359-365 in Hashimoto
et al. (ed) East Asian Science: Tradition and Beyond, Osaka 1995
‘The Zhoubi revisited’ 429-434 in Hashimoto et al. (ed) East Asian Science: Tradition and Beyond, Osaka 1995
'Innnovations techniques en Chine et en Europe' La revue: musée des arts et métiers 21, (1997), 20-29.
'Seeing the Appearances: Ecliptic and Equator in the Eastern Han' Studies
in the History of Natural Sciences (Beijing) vol. 19 no.4 (2000) pp. 352-382
'The Threatening Stranger: Kewu in Pre-modern Chinese Paediatrics' 39-52
in Conrad and Wujastyk (ed) Contagion: Perspectives from Pre-modern Societies
London (2000)
'Constructing a past, imaging a future: the essential role of East Asia in
understanding the origins and possible directions of modern science' Sungkyun
Journal of East Asian Studies, vol. 1 no. 1, (2001) 265-282.
'Yi'an (case statements): the origins of a genre of Chinese medical literature'
297-323 in Elisabeth Hsu (ed) Innovation in Chinese Medicine, Cambridge (2001).
'The first complete Chinese theory of the moon: the innovations of Liu Hong
c. AD 200' Journal for the History of Astronomy, xxxiii, 1-24 (2002)
‘Learning from Liu Hui? A Different Way to Do Mathematics.’ Notices of the American Mathematical Society 49(7): 783-790 (2002)
‘The birthday of the Old Man of Jiang County and other puzzles: work in progress
on Liu Xin’s Canon of the Ages’ Asia Major xiv, part 2, 27-70 (2004 – though
dated 2001 on issue cover).
(c) Film and multimedia
From 1996 to 2001 I acted as principal academic consultant in the making
of The Dragon's Ascent, an eight-part television documentary series.
As well as advising on the overall planning and content of the series I also
wrote a large proportion of the script material. All rights in the
series have now been sold. It has already had showings in East Asia, Europe
and the USA. Rights are being handled by Carlton International.
In addition to the book associated with the series (see above) I was also
the principal author of material for the accompanying CD-ROM which combines
print medium and film material. This is planned to be distributed in
the West together with the book.
In 1998-1999 I worked in association with a group of Cambridge academics
and with Windfall Films in making a television documentary series on the
world historical context of the industrial revolution The day the world took
off. As well as supplying written material I travelled to China to
be filmed making a number of presentations on location. The series
was broadcast on Channel 4 in 2000.
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