Dr. Max Jakob Fölster is a Sinologist and historian who earned his doctorate from the University of Hamburg with a study on the imperial library of the Former Han dynasty and the origins of philology in China. He has held research positions at the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures at the University of Hamburg, the China Branch Office of the Max Weber Foundation, and the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore. His research interests encompass the history of Chinese book culture, libraries, and textual traditions, as well as the history of Sino-German cultural and academic exchanges.