O.J. (Oliver) Moore, Prof

I first studied modern and early Chinese, and trained in methods of social history, focused primarily on early institutions and political thought. During a career spanning Cambridge University, the British Museum, Leiden University, Museum Volkenkunde (Leiden) and the RUG, my interests have led me deep into museum collections and archives in China, Taiwan and Japan, and secured me several exciting appointments as visiting lecturer and a guest professorship at Kyoto University in 2013. Beside historical research, I advocate demystifying Chinese culture through expert yet approachable translations.

My recent research has focused on visual art and cultural productions in early and modern China, emphasizing social, technical and aesthetic aspects of art history and its sociology. I have contributed to TV and radio productions devoted to themes of art and archaeology in China. I am about to publish a translation and contextual discussion of early twentieth-century Chinese musical ballads devoted to the rise of western science.

My study Photography in China: Science, Commerce and Communication appeared with Routledge in early 2022. My current research combines themes in the technologies of reprographics (e.g. printing, rubbing) with their roles in early and modern Chinese society.

My books and articles include:

Photography in China: Science, Commerce and Communication. London and New York: Routledge, 2022.

Translation (with Anthony Di Blasi, Jack Chen, Glen Dudbridge, David McMullen, Hilde De Weerdt, et al.) of Wu Jing 吳競 (670-749), Zhenguan Zhengyao 貞觀政要 (Essentials of government in the Zhenguan era), for Ancient World Political Texts series, Cambridge University Press, 2021.

“Photography’s Appearances in China” in Gil Pasternak, ed., Handbook of Photography Studies. London: Bloomsbury Publications, 2020: 369-390.

Facts, Fictions and Attitudes: Common Tactics for Representing China. Inaugural Lecture, Groningen University, 12 December, 2017. Published by Centre for East Asian Studies Groningen, 2017.

“Hajj from China: Social Meanings and Material Culture” in Luitgard Mols & Marjo Buitelaar, eds, Hajj: Global Interactions Through Pilgrimage. Leiden: Sidestone Press & Leiden National Museum of Ethnology, 2015: 113-136.

“China’s Art and Material Culture” in Wilt Idema, ed., Chinese Studies in the Netherlands. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2014: 211-250.

“Flows of Time in the Centres and Peripheries of Tang Experience” in East Asian History 38 (February, 2014): 25-46.

Review article: Terry Bennett, History of Photography in China, 1844-1879, London, 2013, in Trans Asia Photography Review, issue 4:2 (Spring 2014). (http://tapreview.org).

“Narrow Predictions and Retrospective Aura: Photographic Images and Experiences from China”, in Patricia Spyer and Mary Steedly, eds, Images That Move. Santa Fe, New Mexico: School of Advanced Research, 2013: 127-160.

The Terracotta Army and China’s Unification / Het Terracottaleger en de Chinese eenwording / 秦兵马俑与中国的大一统. Leiden: National Museum of Ethnology, 2012.

“Het Wen-ideaal in literatuur en Kunst”, and “Vertier en plezier” (“The wen ideal in literature and art” and “Entertainment and pleasure”) in Benoît Mater ed., De Goude Eeuw van China—Tang-dynastie (618-907 na Chr.). Assen: Drents Museum, 2011: 137-170.

L’Écriture chinoise. Arles: Centre de Conservation du livre, 2010.

Rituals of Recruitment in Tang China: Reading an Annual Programme in Collected Statements by Wang Dingbao (870-940). Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2004.

“Violence Un-scrolled: Cultic and Ritual Emphases in Painting Guan Yu”, Arts Asiatiques 58 (2003): 86-97.

Reading the Past: Chinese. London: British Museum Press, 2000.

“Art et mécénat sous la dynastie des Tang” (“Art and patronage in the Tang dynasty”), essay and catalogue for Paris Musées, eds, Chine, des Royaumes et des Empires, 25 ans d’archéologie, Paris: Paris Musées, 2000: 4-16, 18-34, 52-68.

“The Ceremony of Gratitude”, in Joseph P. McDermott, ed., State and Court Ritual in China, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999: 197-236.