Vera V. Dorofeeva-Lichtmann

Vera V. Dorofeeva-Lichtmann is Chargé de Recherche Hors Classe at the UMR 8173 Chine-Corée-Japon, CNRS-EHESS (2015–2017 deputy director) and has been an associated member of the research group “Epistémologie et Histoire de la Géographie,” UMR 8504 Géographie-cités since January 2019. She received her PhD in history from the Institute of Asian and African Studies, Moscow State University in 1992.

Together with Dagmar Schäfer, Vera co-directed the three-year research project “Translation Terroirs,” hosted by the MPIWG (2019–2022). She also coordinated a related French-Taiwanese project “Formal Analysis of Filiation of Pre-Modern Maps of East Asia: The Case of Maps of Japan by Daikokuya Kōdayū (1751–1828),” PHC ORCHID 2019–2020.

She has been awarded several Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowships (1996–1998, renewed in 2011 and 2017) and was a visiting fellow at the National Tsing Hua University (Taiwan, 2014), the International Consortium for Research in the Humanities (IKGF, Erlangen, December 2015–December 2016), Zhejiang University (PRC, May 2018), and, prior to the beginning of the “Translation Terroirs” project, a Visiting Scholar at the MPIWG (October–November 2017, September–October and December 2018). From January to December 2024 Vera is a fellow of the Einstein Centre Chronoi, a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the MPIWG (Dept. III), and associated researcher of the Centre Marc Bloch in Berlin.

Her initial domain of research is the basic concepts of terrestrial space in the emerging Chinese Empire, as derived from transmitted and manuscript texts dating from the Warring States period through the Han dynasty, ca. fifth century BCE–second century CE. Gradually she became interested in traditional East Asian maps, as an essential visual aid for comprehending early spatial concepts in the sinographic world, and in the amazing, yet often overlooked vitality of some of these concepts that continued to influence East Asian cartography up to the end of the nineteenth century. Her current interest is the elaboration of formal methods for investigating diagrammatic maps (working term) that do not rely on cartographic projection and are not drawn to scale. One of the outcomes would be a method of reliable reconstruction of filiation of congener maps.

Between June 29 and June 30, 2023, Vera took part in the international workshop “Humans and their Natural Environment: Astronomy and Agriculture in Early Chinese Excavated Manuscripts.” Alongside the president of the International Society for the History of the Map (ISHMAP), Diana Dym (Skydmore College), and Diana Lange (Universität Hamburg; Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Vera co-organized the “VII ISHMap Symposium and II Workshop,” July 10 to July 14, 2023 at Harnack House, the Max Planck Society Conference Center. Between April 4 and 5, 2024 she was a keynote speaker and participant in the international workshop “Beyond All Horizons: Geography and Imagination in Historical East Asia.” She took part in the "Common Knowledge and Its Sources in the Sinosphere, 14th to 20th Centuries" Working Group workshop (April 9–12, 2024) and will moderate a hands-on workshop for the Working Group “Visualization and Material Cultures of the Heavens in Eurasia and North Africa (4000 BCE–1700 CE)” on May 7, 2024. On May 16, 2024, Vera will present her current research at the “Chronoi Talks” hybrid event at the Einstein Center Chronoi.