Alexis Lycas

Alexis Lycas is a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) in Berlin, affiliated with the Department III: Knowledge Systems and Collective Life. Previously, they served as a lecturer at École pratique des hautes études (EPHE, Paris), Université Paris Diderot, and Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (INALCO). They earned a PhD in 2015 from EPHE with a dissertation on spatial representation in Early Medieval Chinese texts, focusing on frontier regions like Jingzhou.

Their research explores the history and geography of Early and Medieval China, including the evolution of Chinese geographical thought, imperial integration of the southern regions, and the political and cultural dynamics of space and memory. They work extensively with pre-printing era geographical manuscripts, official treatises, and ethnographical texts from the Han to Tang dynasties.