Title: Keeping Alive the Chinese Classical Written Language: A Remarkable Legacy of Qian Zhongshu
Lecturer: Young-tsu Wong (Chair Professor of the School of History, Nankai University)
Chairperson: WANG Rui (Assistant Professor, Department of History, East China Normal University)
Date: 2:30 pm, December 21st, 2018 (Friday)
Venue: Room 3102, Building of School of Humanities, Minhang Campus, ECNU
Sponsor: Si-mian Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities, ECNU
Abstract of the Lecture:
Ever since the early twentieth century, new intellectuals, in particular the celebrated Hu Shi, had been championing for replacing the classical written language with vernacular language very successfully. As a result, the classical written language gradually fell into oblivion. While the written language was still used by a few old-fashioned scholars in the 1940s; however, by 1970s after more than 30 years of revolutionary changes and especially in the wake of the devastating Great Cultural Revolution, the new generations had very few crack handsat writing the classical language with ease. Qian Zhongshu’s Limited Viewswritten in elegant classical style appeared in 1979 to be a biting return to the pre-revolutionary era. This paper is in defense of the classical written language and to tell why and how Qian tried so hard to keep the language alive. In my view, he left behind a remarkable legacy to us.
Brief Introduction of the Lecturer:
Young-tsu Wong is Chair Professor of the School of History at Nankai University. He received his Ph.D in 1971 from University of Washington, USA. He is Winner, List of 2% Outstanding Academic Titles, Choice in 2001 and Scholar Award, Virginia Institute of Social Sciences in 1993. His scholarly articles appear in many distinguished international journals, including Journal of Asian Studies, Modern China, American Historical Review, British Historical Review, Lishi Yanjiu, etc.Thus far, he has published 22 books in two languages, 105 articles, and 44 book reviews.