Dr. Johannes Lotze

Imperial China
Nomadic regimes
Comparative empire studies
Multilingualism and translation
Linguistic landscapes
Global Mongol legacy
Global Middle Ages
Material culture

 

Current Project

 ‘The Multilingual Imperial Tradition in China: Tracing a Hidden History’

 

Curriculum Vitae

Johannes S. Lotze is a Buber post-doctoral fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI), member of ‘The Wall: People and Ecology in Medieval Mongolia and China’ (ERC-funded project), and winner of the inaugural 2018 Bayly Prize of the Royal Asiatic Society. He has been a Teaching Fellow in Medieval Chinese History and the Global Middle Ages at the University of Birmingham (2018–2020). Having studied and taught in four countries (Britain, Germany, China, Israel), Johannes holds a PhD in Chinese Studies (University of Manchester, 2017) and a MA in History/Chinese Studies (Freie Universität Berlin, 2012). From 2018–2021, he has been the main curator of the exhibition ‘Qing: China’s Multilingual Empire’ at the John Rylands Library, Manchester. Johannes is a historian of East Asia with a focus on the nature and impact of ‘non-Chinese’ empires in ‘China’; on sedentary/nomadic cooperation and conflict; and specifically on the Mongols and their predecessors.

 

Fellowships and Grants 

• 2012-2015: President’s Doctoral Scholar Award, University of Manchester

• 2019: Awarded Fellowship of the UK Higher Education Academy

• 2020-2022: Post-doctoral fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, ERC project ‘The Wall: People and Ecology in Medieval Mongolia and China,’ led by Professor Gideon Shelach-Lavi

 

Prizes

• 2018: Winner of the inaugural Bayly Prize of the Royal Asiatic Society for best PhD thesis in the East Asia field

 

Education

• 2012: Magister (MA) degree in History / Chinese Studies at Freie Universität Berlin

• 2017: PhD degree in History / Chinese Studies at University of Manchester

 

Publications 

• Lotze, Johannes S., Multilingual Empires: Ming China’s Language Policies and the Hybrid Imperial Tradition (Harvard University Asia Center; forthcoming in early 2027).

• Lotze, Johannes S., Lili Xia 夏麗麗, Zhidong Zhang 張之棟, and Gideon Shelach-Lavi, ‘To Build Or Not To Build? Frontier Walls, Trenches, and Forts in Mid-Jin Politics, 1161-1208,’ T’oung Pao (forthcoming in April 2026).

• Shelach-Lavi, Gideon, Johannes S. Lotze, and Zhidong Zhang, ‘Mobility and Efforts to Reduce Mobility in North China and Mongolia During the Liao/Khitan and Jin/Jurchen Periods (916–1234),” Extrême-Orient Extrême-Occident (accepted).

• Steiner, Tikvah, Gideon Shelach-Lavi, Johannes S. Lotze, Zhidong Zhang, Amartuvshin Chunag, Angaragdulguun Gantumur, and Rivka Rabinovich, ‘Subsistence and Survival Along the Medieval Long-Wall System of Northern China and Mongolia: A Zooarchaeological and Historical Perspective,’ Archaeological Research in Asia 43 (September 2025), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ara.2025.100639.

• Storozum, Michael, Dan Golan, Ido Wachtel, Zhidong Zhang, Johannes S. Lotze, and Gideon Shelach-Lavi, ‘Mapping the Medieval Wall System of China and Mongolia: A Multi-Method Approach,’ Land 10 (2021)

• Lotze, Johannes S. Review of Roxann Prazniak (2019), Sudden Appearances: The Mongol Turn in Commerce, Belief, and Art, The Journal of Asian Studies 79:2 (2020), pp. 479–481.

• Costaguta, Lorenzo, and Johannes S. Lotze, ‘Multilingualism and Transnationalism in the Study of Socialist Movements: A Letter from Friedrich A. Sorge to Karl Marx,’ Rivista di Studi Americani 31 (2020), pp. 227–252.

• Lotze, Johannes S. ‘Report on the Chinese Collection of the John Rylands Library, Manchester’ (2019). Published by the John Rylands Library / University of Manchester.

• Lotze, Johannes S. Review of M. Szonyi (2017), The Art of Being Governed, European Review of History, 26:6 (2019), pp. 1046–1048.

• Lotze, Johannes S. (2017). ‘Translation of Empire: Mongol Legacy, Language Policy, and the Early Ming World Order, 1368-1453.’ PhD Thesis, University of Manchester.

 

Presentations (selection)

• 26 May 2026 (invited): ‘Ming China in a Global History of Multilingual Empires,’ Asian Studies departmental seminar, Bar-Ilan University. 

• 14 May 2026 (invited): ‘Ming Language Policy from the Bottom Up: Who Were the Translators Behind It?’ Tel Aviv University, research seminar led by Professor Meir Shahar.

• 15 March 2026 (accepted): ‘Mongol Yuan Rule as a Driver of Multilingual Consciousness,’ Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference (AAS), Vancouver, Canada.

• 20 August 2025: ‘‘The Benefits Are Everlasting’: Court Debates over Frontier Fortifications in the Jin and Ming Empires Compared,’ Tenth Worldwide Conference of the Society for East Asian Archaeology, University of Aberdeen, UK.

• 7 July 2025: ‘Examination Cultures and Institutional Translation in Multilingual Sinitic Empires,’ International Medieval Congress (IMC), University of Leeds, UK, panel ‘Learning Empire: Transcultural Perspectives on the Language(s) of Medieval Imperial Formations,’ organised by Johannes S. Lotze.

• 15 March 2025: ‘Writing on the Wall: Jurchen Jin Construction of Border Walls and Trenches and the Legacy of the Kitan Liao,’ Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference (AAS), Columbus, USA.

• 15 March 2024: ‘Translating Desire: Manchu and Chinese Sexual Regimes and Literatures,’ Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference (AAS), Seattle, USA, 15 March 2024.

• 14 June 2023 (invited talk): ‘Liao Divisible Sovereignty in Comparative Perspective,’ Conference: Collective Sovereignty, Royal Clan, and Sacred Kingship in Pre-Modern Central Eurasia, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

• 18 March 2023: ‘Tracing a Hidden History: Nomadic Regimes and the Multilingual Imperial Tradition in China,’ Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference (AAS), Boston, USA.

• 24 March 2022: ‘Language Contact and Conflict,’ delivered at Association for Asian Studies conference 2022, Honolulu (in-person), panel ‘The Great Chinggisid Crisis’, organised by Johannes S. Lotze.

• 2 November 2021: ‘Qing: China’s Multilingual Empire,’ delivered online at Manchester China Institute (MCI) to mark the launch of the eponymous exhibition at the John Rylands Library (curated by Johannes S. Lotze and Julianne Simpson).

• 22 March 2021: ‘Multilingual Empires,’ delivered at Association for Asian Studies conference 2021, Seattle (online), panel ‘Trajectories of Multilingualism/Translation’, organised/chaired by Johannes S. Lotze.

• 20 January 2021: ‘Great Walls and Linguistic Barriers: Nomadic Regimes as Catalysts of Language Study in the Chinese World,’ Asian Studies departmental seminar of Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

• 14 June 2019: ‘Inside or Outside the Empire? Language Policies in the Yuan-Ming-Qing Transition’: delivered at Nordic Association for China Studies conference, Universitetet i Bergen, Norway.

• 5 November 2018: ‘The Significance of Multilingualism in Middle and Late Imperial China, or: 元明清時期多語制的意義 [Yuan-Ming-Qing shiqi duoyuzhi de yiyi]’: invited bilingual paper, delivered at University of Glasgow, Confucius Institute.

• 15 June 2018: ‘Multilingual Objects: Material Culture as Evidence of Ming China’s Global Engagement’: delivered at the international workshop ‘Chinese Objects and their Lives’ at the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (INALCO), Paris.

• 18 April 2018: ‘The Jesuits and the Four Barbarians (Siyi 四夷) in Seventeenth Century China’: delivered publicly for the research project ‘East Asian Uses of the European Past’ at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain.

• 9 September 2017: ‘Monolingual Translators? Translation as Collaboration in Early Ming China’: paper delivered at international workshop ‘Translation and Translators in East Asia,’ University of Oxford.