An exhibition of oracle bone scripts at the National Museum of Classic Books in Beijing Photo: IC PHOTO

The popularity of a discipline has long been a subject of debate in academia. For scholars devoted to obscure, rare, and endangered fields, it is common to remain wholly immersed in their work for decades without distraction, enduring solitude and anonymity. As the saying goes, “One must sit on a cold bench for 10 years.”

In recent years, gratifyingly, this “easily overlooked group” has begun to attract more attention from academic circles, while disciplines once relegated to the margins are gradually entering public view. Despite challenges such as highly specialized or “niche” research directions, indecipherable ancient languages, and a scarcity of texts and other research materials, scholars have nonetheless made breakthroughs and new discoveries.

Focusing on topics such as disciplinary characteristics, current applications, future prospects, and inheritance, CSST recently interviewed Tim Whitmarsh, a fellow of the British Academy, and Edward L. Shaughnessy, a professor from the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. As scholars who have long dedicated themselves to the study of traditional Chinese culture, Whitmarsh and Shaughnessy acknowledged that, in the eyes of outsiders, obscure, rare, and endangered disciplines may appear aloof and tedious. However, their true charm and appeal lies in solving mysteries of the past and exploring the unknown.

A matter of perspective

CSST: Obscure, rare, and endangered disciplines face challenges such as highly specialized or secretive research areas, language barriers, narrow branches of specialization, minimal academic attention, and small research teams. How would you define these disciplines, and how might you characterize the difficulties they face?

Whitmarsh: In general, obscure, rare, and endangered disciplines include some classical and ancient culture disciplines, like archaeology, oracle studies, bamboo and slips studies, Dunhuang studies, paleography, the study of endangered languages (dialects), the study of minority languages and historical study, the study of distinctive regional cultures, the study of traditional and unearthed documents, cultural heritage studies, and manuscript studies. But actually, they are not limited to these disciplines.

Whether a discipline is obscure or not is a matter of perspective! I research and write about ancient Greece and Rome, which are actually considered obscure in the West. Lots of people know Homer’s stories about the Trojan War, but it’s true that relatively few people actually study these ancient cultures, and know ancient Greek or Latin languages. There are other ancient Western languages and cultures that even fewer people can read: Egyptian, Syriac, Sumerian, and similar. They are considered mysterious and hard to reach. Even if you can read these languages, people need extra skills to be able to read original ancient documents preserved on stone or on papyrus. Fortunately, today we do have people with these skills, and people who are also willing to decipher these difficult documents.

CSST: Some scholars consider that the knowledge systems and academic expressions of obscure, rare, and endangered disciplines are overly complex. This is one of the reasons that they are not easily understood by the general public. How do you view this?

Whitmarsh: The knowledge system and academic expression are indeed one of the factors that lead to the unpopularity. For scholars who do not study those obscure, rare, and endangered disciplines, these fields are equivalent to “even more difficult.” All university disciplines are, in a way, technical and specialist. For scholars in any field, it is somewhat difficult to completely understand the knowledge of other fields. I wouldn’t understand a paper on astrophysics, but nor would an astrophysicist understand one of my research papers—or have interest in papers of the humanities and social sciences.

Globalization brings challenge

CSST: Endangered languages (dialects) and paleography are often regarded as highly specialized, with high entry barriers and limited appeal, and in which producing research outcomes is difficult. Some disciplines are even in danger of disappearing, with no successors. For example, some languages used by ethnic minority groups are on the verge of extinction, with few people willing to dedicate themselves to them. How do you see this situation?

Whitmarsh: There is indeed a kind of opinion that the university classes of these disciplines now face crisis. I wouldn’t say that studying antiquity (in all its forms) or endangered languages at university is narrow or unpopular: It is true that it isn’t mainstream, and it is true that some universities have reduced what they offer. But the Chinese government and some Western countries try very hard to make our subjects appeal to a wide range of students, and I think we are pretty successful.

When it comes to minority language groups, globalization is the biggest challenge here. It means that people are more mobile, and younger generations are likely to leave their communities to go to other cities—or abroad—in search of money and opportunities. This has led to a sharp decline in the number of speakers and frequency of language use, which means a risk of disappearance.

Another is government policy. Governments have to intervene actively to help preserve the languages and cultures used by minority language groups. Too often they don’t, or even actively seek to marginalize them or assimilate minorities into the majority.

Shaughnessy: In the United States and also elsewhere in the Western world, the study of paleography and so on is indeed endangered, but this is a natural development. These disciplines are difficult and generally require many years of study to master. Many young students also regard ancient history as irrelevant, or at least outside of the mainstream of contemporary scholarship. In addition, American universities are now readjusting the disciplines. This too probably leads some students to decide to focus on less demanding topics. As students choose contemporary topics to study, universities over time inevitably pare back the resources they allot to these disciplines. As a result, such disciplines have become increasingly unpopular over time, thus creating a vicious circle.

Technology aids deciphering ancient texts

CSST: Historical materials are essential for rare and endangered disciplines. Have you faced challenges in your research such as incomplete, scattered, or poorly preserved manuscripts? If so, how did you or your team address these issues? Do any other examples come to mind?

Whitmarsh: It is vital to preserve historical materials and documents. We have no way of replacing these things once they are gone. And we can’t predict the way of interpreting and using these materials in the future. In an era of rapid technological progress, more technologically sophisticated generations of students and scholars will be able to make use of them.

I don’t usually work directly with manuscripts, but yes that can be a challenging process. Most of our important manuscripts of ancient Greek and Latin texts are mediaeval. That is long enough ago that they are quite damaged or decayed by now. It is also quite a long time after many of the ancient texts were written, so it is hard to determine how accurately they reflect the author’s own words. But technology is helping with reading ancient documents. The most dramatic development has been the use of CT-scanning to read a set of charred papyrus scrolls that were buried when a volcano erupted in Italy in the late first century. The volcano in Mount Vesuvius resulted in charred papyrus scrolls.

When they were rediscovered in the 18th century, some people tried to break them open to read them, with disastrous results. Luckily, after realizing the importance of preserving the scroll, scholars soon thought better of that, and had the foresight to preserve them, which is why today’s readers are now able to use non-invasive technology to read these texts for the first time in nearly 2000 years.

Communicating with a wider public

CSST: It is undeniable that obscure, rare, and endangered disciplines are of great cultural value. Their preservation is closely related to cultural profundity, national lifeblood, and national memory. Can you comment on the prospects of these disciplines?

Shaughnessy: Yes, I agree. We need to protect every single precious witness to the ancient past, both for our benefit and for that of future generations. However, I would not want to exaggerate the problem facing the study of ancient China in the West. There are still good scholars producing large amounts of fine scholarship and attracting new students to the field. In some cases, this involves a greater degree of interdisciplinary study—students combining paleography and archaeology, for instance, or oracle-bone studies with studies of bamboo-slip manuscripts. In other cases, it involves looking for comparisons, for instance, between ancient Chinese paleography and ancient Egyptian paleography, as well as between modern and ancient times.

The Chinese government has poured great sums of money into their study, and there are thriving centers for “national studies,” paleography, and archaeology at all of the major universities in China. As a scholar with long experience in American academia, one can only look with envy at the Chinese situation. Those of us who work in these fields still hope that scholars in China and in the West can continue to collaborate, contributing their different interests and skills to the general study.

Whitmarsh: But I do agree that we as academics also need to take active steps to communicate what we do, and the value of it, to a wider public. We owe it to the public to give an account of what we do. We need also to keep communicating to university administrators, governments, and the wider public the value of what we do. To more deeply connect with the reality, we need to know about the past—about cultures connected to ours but also different from them, to go forward. We don’t have any way of predicting the future, except by understanding where people in the past went right and wrong.