Dr Thies Staack
Sinology
Member UWA
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Projects
Cluster of Excellence ‘Understanding Written Artefacts’ (2026–2032)
- Principal Investigator of IRP18: Compiling and Updating Databases of Judicial Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century China: The Example of Shen Jiaben’s Collection of Criminal Cases
Cluster of Excellence ‘Understanding Written Artefacts’ (2019–2025)
- Spokesperson of Research Field D: (Re-)Shaping Written Artefacts
- 2022–2025: Project Lead FNT07:
Collecting and Exchanging Medical Recipes in the Age of Print: Recipe Manuscripts in 19th and Early 20th Century China - 2019–2022: Project Lead FNT07:
Folk Healing in Late Imperial China and Formatting Practices in Medical Manuscripts
Affiliated Projects
- 2011–2015: Researcher on Associated Project:
The Legal Manuscripts of the Qin (3rd century BC) held in the Collection of Yuelu-Academy
Dissertation Project
Research Interests
Thies Staack’s research is situated at the intersection of the history of knowledge, philology and manuscript studies. He is interested in the interrelationship between information management and the materiality of handwriting in pre-modern China and explores the production and use of written artefacts from different domains (law/administration and medicine) and periods (early imperial and late imperial China). Specifically, he investigates how collections of technical or specialist knowledge – such as compilations of criminal case records or medical recipe books – were formed, structured, developed, updated or even shaped by institutionalised control procedures. Additional research interests include the reconstruction and codicology of ancient bamboo and wood scrolls as well as the authenticity and provenance of Chinese manuscripts in general.
CV
Thies studied Sinology, Japanese Studies and General Linguistics at the University of Hamburg (2002–2009) and holds a PhD in Sinology (2015) from the same university. He was a visiting student at the Yuelu Academy of Hunan University (2009–2010), where he also stayed as a visiting research fellow in 2015 and 2016, to work with the editorial team of the Academy’s legal manuscripts from the Qin period (late third century BCE). Thies worked as a research associate in a DFG-funded project (2011–2014) and later at the University of Heidelberg’s collaborative research centre ‘Material Text Cultures’ (2015–2019). In 2019, he joined the Cluster of Excellence ‘Understanding Written Artefacts’, where he has led research projects on the Chinese medical manuscripts from the Unschuld collection. He also served as spokesperson of the Research Field ‘(Re-)Shaping Written Artefacts’ and is member of the editorial board of the journal manuscript cultures.