Professor Roel Sterckx FBA

Clare College
  • Joseph Needham Professor of Chinese History, Science, and Civilization
Available to supervise doctoral students
Available to supervise masters students
Available for consultancy
Professor Roel Sterckx FBA

Contact

About

I took my undergraduate and graduate degrees at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL), National Taiwan University, and University of Cambridge. I spent the next few years at Oxford and the University of Arizona, and returned to Cambridge in 2002. I was appointed to the Chair of Chinese in 2007. At AMES, I have served two stints as Head of Department (DEAS) and Faculty Co-Chair. I am a Trustee of the Needham Research Institute. In 2013, I was elected Fellow of the British Academy. In Chinese publications I am known as Hu Side 胡司德.

Research

Classical and literary Chinese language and philology; cultural history of pre-imperial and early imperial China: ecology and agriculture, natural history, animal studies; food and dietary culture, ritual and religion, economic and political thought; the interplay between moral and material values in Chinese thought. 

Teaching and supervision

Available to supervise doctoral students
Available to supervise masters students

I welcome MPhil and PhD students interested in Chinese thought and the cultural history of the pre-imperial and early imperial period (Zhou through Han). I am particularly interested in projects that explore perceptions of the natural world and its resources, the role of ritual, and the ways in which material values shape ethics, philosophy and political thought. Applicants applying to the PhD program should have an intermediate or advanced proficiency in classical and literary Chinese prior to starting their doctorate. Applicants with little or no prior undergraduate training in a relevant field and/or who require further training in classical Chinese should apply for the MPhil course first. Students wishing to work with me can be considered for the Louis Cha Scholarship, provided they apply to St John's College.

Papers taught:

C.3 Literary Chinese, 1

C.13 Literary Chinese, 3

CM8 Chinese Texts (MPhil)

CM9 Early China (MPhil)

 

Selected publications:

  • “Fish Farming in Pre-modern China: A study and translation of two texts.” T’oung Pao 111.3-4 (2025): 353-396.
  • “Excreted and left untreated? Human and animal waste: from Dunhuang back to Laozi.” East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine (Brill) 55.1 (2023): 1-41.
  • Animals Through Chinese History: Earliest times to 1911 (with Dagmar Schaefer and Martina Siebert). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.
  • Ways of Heaven. An Introduction to Chinese Thought. New York, Basic Books, 2019.
  • Chinese Thought. From Confucius to Cook Ding. London: Penguin, 2019.
    • Chinees Denken. Over Geschiedenis, filosofie, en samenleving. (Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Nieuwezijds, 2021)
    • 中国思想.  从孔夫子到庖丁. 上海: 文艺出版社, 2022.
    • Китайская мысль: от Конфуция до повара Дина. Moscow: Alpina, 2023.
  • Food, Sacrifice, and Sagehood in Early China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011 (2015). 
    • 胡司德,  早期中国的食物、祭祀和圣贤. Hangzhou: Zhejiang daxue chubanshe, 2018.
  • In the Fields of Shennong. Cambridge: Needham Research Institute, 2008.
  • De l'Esprit aux Esprits: Enquête sur la notion de shen en Chine (with Romain Graziani). Saint-Denis: Presses Universitaires de Vincennes, 2007.
  • Of Tripod and Palate: Food, Politics and Religion in Traditional China (ed.); New York:  Palgrave MacMillan, 2005. 
  • The Animal and the Daemon in Early China. Albany: SUNY Press, 2002.
    • 胡司德,  古代中国的动物与灵异. Nanjing: Jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 2016.