Acknowledgements

This book is based on my doctoral thesis “ ‘Realising a Character’s True Meaning’: Divination and Script-Contemplation in the Zichu 字觸 by Zhou Lianggong 周亮工 (1612–1672)”. This thesis was written and defended at the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU). Many people were forthcoming in terms of helping to ensure the progression and completion of this work, for which I am very grateful. Obviously, any remaining errors and mistakes are my own.

First and foremost, I owe a profound debt to my teacher Michael Lackner. I am eternally grateful for his invaluable guidance, his unending patience, his stimulating criticism, and his kind support.

Special thanks are also due to Christoph Harbsmeier and Marc Andre Matten, for fruitful scholarly discussions and for enlightening suggestions on the final draft of my study. Furthermore, I would like to thank Martina Schönbein for her comments on parts of my study and her support during the final stages of the project.

I could not have undertaken this project without a generous Ph.D. grant from the Evangelisches Studienwerk villigst e.V., which also gave me the opportunity to travel to China and Taiwan for research purposes during this project.

The stimulating environment and people at the International Consortium for Research in the Humanities IKGF in Erlangen contributed substantially to this project. Thus, I would like to extend my thanks to everyone at the IKGF. I am indebted to Marta Hanson and Constance Cook for interesting discussions and helpful insights and to Zhao Lu 趙璐 for his comments on parts of an earlier version of this study. Furthermore, I would like to thank Dimitri Drettas and Christian Meyer for advice during the earlier stages of this project, Andrea Bréard for assistance in mathematical matters, and Philipp Balsiger for his encouragement. I am also especially grateful to Petra Hahm, for her kind concern and long-lasting support.

I owe a lot to my fellow Ph.D. students at the IKGF. For great scholarly and other discussions, I extend my thanks to Song Xiaokun 宋曉堃, Nikola Chardonnens, Philipp Hünnebeck, Holger Schneider, and Florian Wagner.

Everyone at the Sinology department at the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg contributed to this project in its latter stages. I am indebted to Carsten Storm, for his remarks on parts of my project and Michael Höckelmann for advise on the final version of the manuscript. I would furthermore like to thank Margarete Darr, Renée Krusche, and all student assistants working at the library of the Sinology department for their encouragement.

I spent a fruitful time in China at the Center for Zhouyi and Ancient Chinese Philosophy at Shandong University during my research. I want to thank everyone there, but especially Zhang Wenzhi 張文智, for discussions on my primary sources and his generous help.

I would also like to thank Fabian Schäfer for his comments on parts of my project during a lecture at the Asien-Pazifik-Kolloquium at Erlangen. Similarly, I am grateful to Iwo Amelung, Yang Zhiyi 楊治宜, and everyone present at the Young Scholars’ Forum 2015 in Frankfurt for their suggestions.

My gratitude is also extended to Christina Sanchez-Stockhammer, who was and is a great mentor and good friend.

Last, but not least, I cannot overstate how thankful I am to all my friends and family for supporting me during this time. I feel especially grateful to my friends Bettina Beier, Almut Stoiber, Frederik Offen, Stefan Torscher, Julia Vennemann, and Amanda Wareham. I do not know what I would have done without the loyal support of my family. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my grandparents Hans and Annemarie Hertlein, as well as my sister Lena Schmiedl. My eternal gratitude belongs to my mother Martina Hertlein and to Lukas Schmid, who have patiently endured my moods and long monologues about my study. Without them, this project would never have reached completion.