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Dr. Paul Fahr

Research Fellow

Room: MB 2.119
Phone: +49 (0)234 32-22993
Facsimile: +49 (0)234 32-14265
Email: paul.fahr@rub.de

Consultation hour
by appointment



  • Concept and institutions of rule in premodern China
  • Historiography (especially Han)
  • Reception of the premodern Chinese state in the PRC
  • Concept of 'text' in Classical Chinese

2009–2012 Undergraduate education in Sinology and Philosophy, University of Hamburg and University of Münster. 2012–2013 Mandarin Training Program at the Nankai University in Tianjin, People's Republic of China. 2013–2016 M.A. studies in Classical Sinology, University of Münster. 2016–2020 Doctoral candidate in the Sub-Project "Securing Sovereignty through Consensus: the Institutionalization of Criticism in China from Antiquity to the Early Imperial Era" of the Collaborative Research Centre 1167, "Power and Rulership – premodern configurations in a transcultural perspective" (details in German only), at the University of Bonn. 2021–2022 substituting for Christian Schwermann as acting director of the department. Since 2022 research project "Meritocracy and Dynasticism in China" (funded by the German Research Foundation).

  • With Juliane Bienert, Manfred Eikelmann, Christian Schwermann, Anna Kristina Wand and Maren Veronika Ziegler-Bellenberg: “Führen gute Hirten sanft? Zum Problem der Revitalisierung von Metaphern in historisch vergleichender Perspektive” [Do Good Shepherds Lead Gently? On the Revitalization of Metaphor from a Historical-comparative Perspective]. In: metaphorik.de 35 (2024), 147–192.
  • With Thomas Crone and Christian Schwermann (eds.): Perduring Protest? Perspectives on the History of Remonstrance in China. (Studien zu Macht und Herrschaft; 7). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht / Bonn University Press, 2023.
  • "Remonstrating under Difficult Circumstances: The Case of Wang Jia in ‘Hanshu’, Chapter 86". In: Thomas Crone, Paul Fahr, Christian Schwermann (eds.): Perduring Protest? Perspectives on the History of Remonstrance in China. (Studien zu Macht und Herrschaft; 7). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht / Bonn University Press, 2023, 79‒106.
  • "The Despotic State Reconsidered: On a Recent Debate in Chinese Academia". In: Oriens Extremus 60 (2023), 141‒170.
  • "On General Terms for Texts in Early China". In: T'oung Pao 108.5–6 (2022), 559–587.
  • "On the Meaning of shi 事 in Han Historiography." In: T'oung Pao 107.1–2 (2021), 189–196.
  • Remonstration als Institution. Ein Beitrag zum Herrschaftsverständnis im frühen chinesischen Kaiserreich [Remonstrance as an Institution: On the Concept of Rule in Early Imperial China]. (Veröffentlichungen des Ostasieninstituts der Ruhr-Universität Bochum; 71). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2021.
  • "Den Kaiser herausfordern? Die Herrschaft Wang Mangs vor dem Hintergrund der Thronfolge der Westlichen Han" [Challenging the Emperor? Wang Mang's Rise to Power and the Rule of Succession during the Western Han Dynasty]. In: Tilmann Trausch (ed.): Norm, Normabweichung und Praxis des Herrschaftsübergangs in transkultureller Perspektive [Norm, Exception to, and Practice of the Transfer of Power from a Transcultural Perspective]. (Macht und Herrschaft; 3). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht / Bonn University Press, 2019, 263–290.
  • With Christian Schwermann: "'Konsensuale Herrschaft' im alten China. Eine begriffsgeschichtliche Annäherung" ['Rule by Consensus' in Early China: A Conceptual Approach]. In: Linda Dohmen and Tilmann Trausch (eds.): Entscheiden und Regieren. Konsens als Element politischer Entscheidungsfindung [To Decide and Govern: Consent as an Element of Pre-Modern Decision-Making from a Transcultural Perspective]. (Macht und Herrschaft; 9). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht / Bonn University Press, 2019, 177–196.