Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies

Office hours by agreement

Wolfgang Behr (born 1965 in Göttingen, FRG), read Sinology, Slavic Studies, Indo-European and Comparative Linguistics and Sociology in Frankfurt/Main, Shenyang, Changchun and Moscow. He receied his M.A. in 1991 with a thesis on Sanskrit-Chinese lexicography, his Ph.D. in 1997 with a dissertation on "Rhyming Bronze Inscriptions and the Origins of Chinese End-Rhyme Versificaton", and his Habilitation in 2008 on "Phonological and Morphological Studies in Early Chinese History of Thought and Culture". Between 1991–1997 he was Teaching and Research Assistant at J.W. Goethe-Universität Frankfurt a.M., Research Fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden, in 1998, Research Fellow at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, Uppsala in 2005, and University Lecturer (Akademischer Rat) at Ruhr-University Bochum 1998–2008. Since September 2008 he is Professor at UZH. He held visting professorships in Hong Kong in 2014 (at Chinese University) and in 2017 (at The Jao Tsung-i Academy). Since 2018 he serves as Dean of Research at the Faculty of Humanties and Social Sciences of UZH.

• Old Chinese phonology, morphology, etymology & paleography
• Sino-Tibetan linguistics; external contacts of Old and Middle Chinese
• Premodern Chinese dialectology
• History of Chinese philology; epistemological foundations of historical linguistics in China, conceptual and cultural history, Philosophy of language beyond Standard Average European
• Pre-imperial Chinese archaeology & history; Early Chinese historiography
• Sanskrit-Chinese translation & lexicography
• Modern Chinese translation of Western experimental literature, translatability, puns, metrics
• Grammatology of complex non-alphabetic writing-systems

See for a periodically updated list http://uzh.academia.edu/WolfgangBehr/ or query for "Wolfgang Behr" on zenodo.org.

Recent Publications

• (with R. Suter & L. Indraccolo, eds.): The Gongsunlongzi and Other Neglected Texts: Aligning Philo­sophical and Philological Perspectives [Welten Ost­asiens], Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020, 575 pp. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110587814/html
• (with R. Sybesma, C.T.J. Huang, Z. Handel, J. Myers & Gu Yueguo, eds.):
  En­cyclopedia of Chinese Language and Lin­guistcs,Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2017,
  5 vols., 3454 pp.; also online @ http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/browse/encyclopedia-of-chinese-language-and-linguistics.
• (with Sun Jingtao, eds.) Papers from the Li Fang-Kuei Society Young Scholar's Symposium (2013), special double issue of Bulletin of Chinese Linguistics 8.1 & 2 (2015), ca. 243 & 195 pp. https://brill.com/view/journals/bcl/8/1/bcl.8.issue-1.xml
• (with R.H. Gassmann): Antikchinesisch. Ein Lehrbuch in drei Teilen [Antique Chinese: a textbook in three parts] (Schweizerische Asiengesell­schaft, Stu­dienhefte; 18/1-3), 3 Bde., Bern: P. Lang, 242+503+492 pp.; 3rd revised ed., Antikchinesisch ― Ein Lehrbuch in zwei Teilen [Antique Chinese: a text­book in two parts] (Schweizerische Asiengesellschaft, Stu­dienhefte; 19/1-3), Teil 1: Eine pro­pä­deu­tische Einführung in fünf Element(ar)gängen [A propaedeutic introduction in five element(ary) steps], Teil 2: Chrestomathie mit Glossaren und Grammatikno­tizen [Chrestomathy with Glossaries and Grammar Notes], 2 Bde., Bern: P. Lang, 2011, 242+505 pp. https://www.peterlang.com/view/title/59556
• (with R.H. Gassmann): Grammatik des Antikchinesischen – Begleitband zu Antikchinesisch – Ein Lehrbuch in zwei Teilen [A grammar of Antique Chinese; supplementary volume to Antique Chinese – a text­book in two parts] (Schweizer Asiatische Studien; 20), Bern: P. Lang, 2013, 523 pp. https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/89130/
• (with Licia di Giacinto, Ole Döring, Christine Moll-Murata, eds.) Auf Augenhöhe – Festschrift zum 65. Geburtstag von Heiner Roetz, special issue of Bochumer Jahrbuch zur Ostasienforschung, Mün­chen: iudicium, 2015, 502 pp. https://www.iudicium.de/katalog/86205-180.htm
• (with L. Indraccolo, eds.) Masters of Disguise: Conceptions and Misconceptions of rhetoric in Early China, spe­cial issue of Asiatische Studien 68.4, 2014, pp. 889–1265. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/asia-2014-frontmatter4/html

at UZH (selection):

• Vice Dean of Research
• LERU Knowledge Security and Foreign Interference Group, UZH Delegate
• Universitas 21, UZH Research Leader Delegate
• UZH Accreditation Committee
• Interfaculty Committee on Technology and Innovation
• Interfaculty Committee on Internationalization
• Committee on Digitization of Library Collections, City of Zurich State
• Archives, Municipal and University Library & UZH
• Director of Studies Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies
• Director Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program "Asia and Europe"
• PhD Program Linguistics
• Zurich Center for Linguistics
• URPP Language and Space
• MA program Culture in Antiquity

elsewhere:

• Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences / State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation, Humanities and Social Sciences Working Group
• Evaluation board, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia
• Swissuniversities Selection Committee China scholarships

• Asian and African Studies (Bratislava)
• Asiatische Studien / Études Asiatiques
• Bulletin of Chinese Linguistics (Hong Kong & Leiden)
• Bulletin of the Jao Tsung-I-Academy of Sinology
• Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiqtuities (Stockholm)
• Cahiers de Linguistique d' Asie-Orientale (Paris & Leiden)
• International Journal of CHinese Character Studies (Seoul)
• Journal of Asian History (Wiesbaden)
• Old World: Journal of Ancient Africa and Eurasia (Leiden)
• T' oung Pao (Paris, Princeton & Leiden)
• Worlds of East Asia (Berlin)

• European Association for Chinese Studies (Linguistics section convenor, 2004–2010, Executive board 2010–2016)
• German Association of Chinese Studies 德國漢學協會
• European Association for the Study of Chinese Manuscripts (Founding Member)
• European Association of Chinese Linguistics (Secretary 2001-2003, President 2003-2007)
• International Association of Chinese Linguistics (Executive committee 1997–1999)
• Li Fang-kuei Society for Chinese Linguistics (Board of Directors 2009–)
• Swiss Asia Society (Executive Board 2009–, President 2015–2020)
• Academia Europaea (Ordinary Member, Linguistics Section)

cf. research page

• Milad Abedi, “The cultural history of Sino-Iranian lexical contacts” (2020–)
• Samira Müller “Made in the western regions or beyond? Foreign products as reflected in Indian loan words found in excavated and transmitted texts from the Han-Dynasty” (2019–)
• Yves Trachsel, “Reflections of Qing Ban­ner Life in Manchu-Chinese primers” (2017–)
• Gian Carlo Danuser, “Contextuality and Identification: on the Referentiality of Human Action as delineated in the writings of late Warring States China” (2017–)
• Julia Escher, “Marriage alliances between Chi­nese dynasties and neighboring powers in Early me­dieval China (2016–)
• Marcel Schneider, “Transition through traditions. The battle for defensable orders at the dawn of Imperial China” (2016–)
• Mariana Zorkina, “The imagery of Tang ‘poems on things’: a semiotic approach” (2015–)
• Liu Chunxiao, “The aural aesthetics of Táng poetry” (2013–)

Potential Ph.D. students kindly contact me with a project outline, a detailed CV and a transcript of records of your M.A.