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Historians explore ways to raise China's voice in historical studies

Author  :  ZHANG CHUNHAI and LI YONGJIE     Source  :    Chinese Social Sciences Today     2016-12-29

More than 80 history experts gathered at a recent forum to discuss ways to increase China’s voice and influence in international historical studies, thereby promoting the construction of a discourse system on philosophy and the social sciences with Chinese characteristics.

With the theme “Shaping of the Chinese Discourse and School,” the 10th Forum on Frontiers of History was held from Dec. 21 to 22 in Fuzhou, Southeast China’s Fujian Province. It was co-hosted by the editorial department of Historical Research, the flagship journal of the Social Sciences in China Press under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), and the College of Social Development at Fujian Normal University.

Yi Jianping, a research fellow from the Institute of World History at CASS, told CSST reporters that studies of world history have made notable progress in China compared with three decades, even one or two decades ago, securing discourse power in the international history community.

Chinese scholars have begun to access first-hand research materials, Yi said, citing experts in ancient world history as an example, who have started to utilize ancient linguistic literature for research and dialogue with foreign scholars.

Chinese historical studies have a fine tradition of pragmatism. At the forum, scholars discussed a number of practical history-related topics, such as environmental, medical and cultural history.

Regarding the lack of attention to life in historical studies, Yu Xinzhong, a professor of history at Nankai University, pointed out the importance of practicing the theory and methodology about “life history” to highlight the value and significance of historical research.

Zhou Qiong, director of the Institute of Southwest Environmental History at Yunnan University, shed light on environmental history, a new branch of history, appealing for greater discourse and new schools because of the urgency of solving realistic environmental crises.

When building the contemporary Chinese historical discourse system, it is equally crucial to straighten out and reflect on Western theories on Chinese history.

Li Zhonglin, a professor of history at Nankai University, reviewed the development of “Chinese civilization with Western origins” theory.

Although the theory had been negated by constantly discovered archaeological materials as early as in the mid-20th century, the paradigm remained influential on academic research afterwards, Li said, adding that Chinese coaches and bronze ware were regarded as originating from the West for a period of time. Empirical research has proved that theories of this kind are logically and archaeologically untenable, Li said.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, European academics and thinkers engaged in protracted discussions on the authenticity of Chinese primeval history. The topic was brought back to the spotlight in Western academia in the 19th century.

Western scholars’ discussions on Chinese primeval history during this period still hold academic value, said Wu Yixiong, dean of the Department of History at Sun Yat-Sen University.

However, Wu called attention to the strong Christian background of authors of these works. Their inclinations made their academic works religious. For instance, some scholars took the chronology of Bible as the absolute frame of reference, so the incompatible traditional Chinese primeval history system was fallacious in their eyes, Wu said.

Editor: Yu Hui

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