Lecture by Dr. Lei Huanjie in the 39th talk of the “Tan Lark Sye Lecture Series”
The 39th session of the Tan Lark Sye Lecture Series took place on 12th March 2025. This lecture invited Dr. Lei Huanjie from the Institute of Philosophy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences as the guest speaker, with the topic “The Evolution of Chinese People’s Railway Cognition in the Late Qing Dynasty.” In this lecture, the speaker shared the methodology for constructing a pre-service international Chinese teacher belief scale and tested its reliability and validity.
Dr. Lei Huanjie, the guest speaker, is an associate researcher at the Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and holds academic positions as the secretary-general of the Committee on the History of Science and Technology Philosophy of the Chinese Association for Dialectical Materialism and the deputy director of the Center for Research on Science, Technology, and Society at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Dr. Lei has published the book A Historical Treatise of Railway Cognition in the Late Qing Dynasty and has led a project funded by the National Social Science Fund for young researchers. He has also published numerous academic papers. His main research interests include the history of science and technology thought, science and society, the history of science and technology philosophy, the history of Sino-Western scientific exchange, tracking science and technology hot topics, and important scientific concepts and figures.
In this lecture, Dr. Lei shared the history of railway perception in the late Qing period on a conceptual level, focusing successively on key issues such as “What is a railway?”, “Should railways be built?”, and “How should railways be managed?”, presenting a more comprehensive picture of railway history. Dr. Lei suggested that from the perspective of railway perception, the beginning of Chinese railway history could be redefined, which would be helpful for studying the history of science and technology dissemination and the history of Western learning’s influence on China. However, railway perception, which was formed by the diffusion of railway knowledge and technology, had a reciprocal effect on society and led to changes in the modern social atmosphere.
After the lecture, the audience and host actively engaged with the speaker during the Q&A session. The audience raised high-level questions related to railway topics, and the speaker patiently answered each one. The lecture was hosted by Dr. Ng Khai Boon from New Era University College and was attended by more than 170 audiences.
