【Seminar　June 18】SRC Seminar “Marco Polo and the Khataynameh: Tracing Cross-Cultural Currents from the Mongol Empire to Ming China”

Date & Time: Wednesday, June 18, 16:30-18:00

Venue: Room 403 at the Slavic-Eurasian Research Center, Hokkaido University

Speaker: Hyunhee Park (The City University of New York)

Title: Marco Polo and the Khataynameh: Tracing Cross-Cultural Currents from the Mongol Empire to Ming China

Language：English

Abstract: This talk examines two pivotal travel accounts—The Travels of Marco Polo and the Khataynameh (1516) by Seyyed ʿAli Akbar Khatayi—to explore how Eurasian understandings of China evolved from the height of the Mongol Empire to the early sixteenth century. Marco Polo’s thirteenth-century narrative captures a world newly opened under Mongol rule, introducing Europe to the wealth and complexity of Yuan China. In contrast, the Khataynameh, written more than two centuries later, reflects a shifting landscape of transregional interaction, presenting Ming China through the eyes of a Persian-speaking Muslim traveler. Khatayi’s detailed account conveys familiarity rather than awe, offering insights into Chinese governance, court rituals, and daily life from within an Islamic and Central Asian worldview. This comparative reading reveals how knowledge about China circulated and adapted across changing political and cultural conditions in Afro-Eurasia— including the environmental and political challenges that characterized parts of the fourteenth century. By juxtaposing these texts, the talk sheds light on the evolving contours of interregional exchange and the enduring legacies of cross-cultural encounter that shaped early modern perceptions of East Asia.

Format: Hybrid

Registration for Online Participation: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/Bp4v87BrSZms-XsjC_-tDg

Organized by: Platform for Explorations in Survival Strategies at the Slavic-Eurasian Research Center, Hokkaido University

Co-organized by: JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A) “Climate Changes, Plagues and Wars: The “Crisis of the Fourteenth Century” in the Afro-Eurasian Context”
JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) “Ecological Imagination in the Interface of Cultures”

Contact: Yoichi Isahaya < yoichi.isahaya[at]slav.hokudai.ac.jp > ([at] reads as @）