Focusing on China’s first doctors of arts
China’s First Batch of Doctors of Liberal Arts
China’s First Batch of Doctors of Liberal Arts focuses on the academic careers of the first doctors of the liberal arts since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.
The book takes the form of interviews that record the hard learning processes of ten influential scholars including Mo Lifeng, Yu Keping, Qian Chengdan, Li Bochong, Zhuang Kongshao, Ma Min, Luo Gang, Ge Jianxiong, Tao Siyan and Hu Xingliang. The book also outlines the process of reconstruction and revival of China’s liberal arts.
According to the experiences of the ten, when the urban educated youth went to and worked in the countryside, the peasants were very supportive of their learning at the time. As long as the assigned work had been done, they could study at their will.
It is worth noting that they also took the opportunity to read those books criticized at the time such as The Water Margin and The Analects of Confucius. The most innovative method of learning was displayed by Ge Jianxiong. He learned English through the English version of Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong.
Mo Lifeng tended to learn from his predecessors and studied the research methods exhibited in the studies of classical literature such as Notes on Literature and Art and The Pipe and Awl Collection. Yu Keping, an expert of political science, hoped that he could use any available and useful research tools for the analysis of realpolitik from multiple perspectives.
Through years of effort, these Chinese pioneering doctors of the liberal arts realized admirable achievements. Mo Lifeng and his study of Tang and Song literature are considered a benchmark and model of study in the field. Tao Siyan promotes the development of Chinese folklore, and he has enabled this originally backward discipline to exchange equally with international counterparts.
These academic elites are still steadily moving onward. Mo Lifeng published The Complete Works of Mo Lifeng recently. Mo said that he will continue to do research work, open courses, teach his graduate students, and do some further popularization work as long as he can. Tao Siyan cites the words of Marx, “People who are fortunate to engage in scientific research should first serve humanity with their knowledge.” Yu Keping believes that for scholars of the humanities, the value of research is reflected only when one’s personal academic career is integrated with the destiny of the country.
edited by YANG LANLAN