Otto Franke (sinologist)

Otto Franke (27 September 1863 – 5 August 1946) was a German diplomat, sinologist, and historian. Quotes ...the anachronistic conception that Greece and Rome alone should be considered sources of culture for us, and that therefore they must remain for all time the focal point of historical-philological research. [Classicists] still practice that orthodox philology, which claims and possesses an influence, which it has not for a long time deserved, [and] that intolerant onesidedness which only accords the oriental sciences a hearing in so far as they are related to the history and culture of Greece, but otherwise are blind and want to be blind to the enormous field of Asian knowledge, which has brought us into contact with the modern world. [They are still beholden to] that real “unworldliness” in the scholarly sense, which takes no part in the widened historical conceptions of our day. Those are the forces with which Orientalistik has always had to struggle, and which today too block Sinology’s path, ... And added to this is another fact, that one ought to think, should offer [Sinology] a leg up, but actually because of the weirdness of our academic [canons of] scientificness hinders it; and that is its vital connection with the present. If Sinology only had to do exclusively with a long finished, ruined and then re-excavated culture, then perhaps there would be a possibility of finding grace in the eyes of the philological right-thinkers. .. Otto Franke, “Die sinologischen Studien in Deutschland,” in idem, Ostasiatische Neubildungen: Beitrage zur Verstdndnis der politischen und kulturellen Enwicklungs-Vorgdnge im Fernen Osten (Hamburg, 1911), quoted in Suzanne L. Marchand - German Orientalism in the Age of Empire. Religion, Race, and Scholarship-Cambridge University Press (2009) What will this Europe be for the Orient in the future? A band of swindlers and oppressors, without honor, without shame! — Otto Franke to C. H. Becker, May 26, 1915 Suzanne L. Marchand - German Orientalism in the Age of Empire. Religion, Race, and Scholarship-Cambridge University Press (2009) External links Category:1863 births Category:1946 deaths Category:Historians from Germany Category:Sinologists Category:Journalists from Germany Category:Diplomats of Germany Category:University of Göttingen alumni Category:Academics from Germany