Name Roel Sterckx Hanyu Pinyin | Chinese 胡司德 | |
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Nationality British, Belgian (Flemish) Books Food, Sacrifice, and Sagehood in Early China Alma mater Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, University of Cambridge Fields History of China, Anthropology | ||
Institutions Cambridge University Academic advisors Mark Edward Lewis Institution University of Cambridge | ||
CREDOC: Food and Civilisation: Roel Sterckx
Roel Sterckx FBA (born 1969) is a Belgian-British sinologist and anthropologist who currently serves as the Joseph Needham Professor of Chinese History, Science, and Civilization at Cambridge University, and is Director of Studies at Clare College.
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Life and career
Sterckx attended secondary school at the Sint-Jan Berchmanscolleg in Mol, Belgium. He then studied Chinese at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, earning a Candidate degree in 1989 and a Licentiate in 1991. He then spent two years studying Chinese philosophy at National Taiwan University before moving to Cambridge, earning an M.Phil. in 1993. Sterckx received his Ph.D. in Oriental studies from Cambridge in 1997 with a doctoral thesis entitled "The Animal and the Daemon in Early China: A Study of Animal Lore in Warring States and Han Texts". He also holds a D.Phil. by incorporation from Oxford University.
He served as Secretary-General of the European Association for Chinese Studies from 2006 to 2012. In 2013 he was elected Fellow of the British Academy.
Sterckx's research deals with the study of the classical and literary Chinese language; the cultural history, religion and thought of pre-imperial and early imperial China; and the history of Chinese agriculture. He has written on culinary culture, perceptions of the animal world and natural history in pre-modern China.