"...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 âunworldlinessâ 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 Sinologyâs 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. .."
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Journalists from GermanyHistorians from GermanyDiplomats of GermanySinologistsUniversity of Göttingen alumni
Original Language: English
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Otto Franke, âDie sinologischen Studien in Deutschland,â 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)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Otto_Franke_(sinologist)
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Otto Franke (sinologist)
Otto Franke (27 September 1863 â 5 August 1946) was a German diplomat, sinologist, and historian.
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