Ronnie Hsia, born in Hong Kong, in 1955. Ph.D. from Yale University, New Haven. Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of History at Pennsylvania State University, University Park.
Fellow (1 September 2005 – 30 June 2006)
CATHOLIC MISSION AND CONVERSION IN CHINA, 16TH TO 18TH CENTURIES
During my stay at NIAS, I made substantial progress toward completing my monograph, although less than I had expected. The most substantial progress was made by two short archival visits to Rome, where I worked in the Roman Archives of the Society of Jesus and the Historical Archive for the Propaganda Fidei. In addition to working with materials from the Sinological Institute in Leiden, I largely completed the collection of data for my project. Using this and other materials, I have continued to write the chapters for the monograph, about half of the 14 planned chapters are in draft form.
In addition to progress on my new monograph, I completed work on a project begun during my last leave: a book of documents and historical introduction on the correspondence between the Countess Maria Theresia von Fugger-Wellenburg and German-speaking Jesuits in 18th century Vietnam and China. It will be published in the Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu, series this year.
All in all, this has been a very enjoyable and actually very productive year. In addition to the monograph mentioned, I have finished several articles and reviews, which were undertaken entirely during my stay at NIAS.