Essays

Professor Jonathan Spence (essay)

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Jonathan Spence

Jonathan Spence is the towering intellectual in Chinese studies at Yale, a man who has produced generations of important scholars in Chinese history and inspired many undergraduates at Yale to study Chinese. His most important role, I believe, has been introducing Chinese culture to American intellectuals who would otherwise not take much interest. Because he writes such elegant English, and is so well versed in the Western classics, his writing makes China accessible. I took only one course with Professor Spence, his famous survey of Modern China. We established a close relationship that has lasted to this day.

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Professor Kang-i Sun Chang (essay)

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Professor Kang-i Sun Chang

There was one other Chinese at Yale who had immense impact on me and led me to strive for excellence in the field of Chinese, Professor Kang-i Sun Chang (孙康宜教授). An extremely enthusiastic teacher and scholar trained in Taiwan, she had an all encompassing view of the potential of Chinese literature to be meaningful to everyone. She was also the one who encouraged me to learn Japanese and to study in Japan for my graduate work. Her father had studied in Japan in a previous era and she felt that I should take an equally broad perspective. An extremely well-read scholar, who wished to talk with anyone willing to engage her in a serious conversation, Professor Zhang constantly shared with me poems and stories when we sat at the desk in her office.

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Would we be better off if we were run by robots?

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Of course it is a joke, or mostly a joke, perhaps.

But as we witness the complete inability of humans to regulate themselves and embrace global projects that will start to address the problems of limited natural resources, globalization and climate change, we cannot help wonder whether humans are even capable of rising to the occasion.

When Albert Einstein wrote about world federalism in the 1950s, the facts were already clear: technology has moved so far beyond human’s ability to control that we need a global approach to assuring that technology is used responsibly and global war can be avoided. And yet, although the need for “world federalism” is even greater today, and the world is increasingly integrated by trade and the global exchange of information, if anything, humans are even less capable of coming up with global solutions.

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The Need for Peace: Fukushima and Technology

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Many people dismiss the call for global peace as an unrealistic dream of the naive. I do believe that we must uphold high ideals if we hope to achieve anything in this world. But at the same time, there is a practical reason why we cannot afford to contemplate war any more. The cause is none other than the unprecedented acceleration in the rate of technological change. 

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Portraits: Marston Anderson (essay)

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Marston Anderson

When I returned from my year in Taiwan, there was a new professor of Chinese literature at Yale whom I had never met. He was a tall man with very short blond hair and a shy personality. The new professor did not talk much unless you engaged in a subject, but then he spoke with an enthusiasm and alertness that was inspiring. His name was Marston Anderson and he had just received a Ph.D. from Berkeley in Chinese literature. I heard later that he had been considered one of the most promising young scholars of Chinese studies. Professor

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Portraits: Jonathan Spence (Essay)

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Jonathan Spence

Jonathan Spence is the towering intellectual in Chinese studies at Yale, a man who has produced generations of important scholars in Chinese history and inspired many undergraduates at Yale to study Chinese. His most important role, I believe, has been introducing Chinese culture to American intellectuals who would otherwise not take much interest. Because he writes such elegant English, and is so well versed in the Western classics, his writing makes China accessible. I took only one course with Professor Spence, his famous survey of Modern China. We established a close relationship that has lasted to this day.

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Portraits: Vivien Lu and Chinese language at Yale University

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Vivien Lu

I decided to study Chinese my freshman year at Yale rather abruptly after taking a course in French literature for three weeks and then promptly dropping the course. Although I had done well in French, and thought that perhaps a major in French literature would be a good way to go at Yale, I found that I was simply not inspired by the books we read. I fell asleep in the library within a few minutes trying to read the plays of Moliere.

I spent a few days thinking about what I wanted to do next and decided that Chinese literature was the most intriguing opportunity for me among the classes listed for Fall, 1983. I quickly made up my mind that I wanted to learn Chinese, and learn it as quickly as possible.

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Christine Liang and Lowell High School (essay)

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Christine Liang

It would not be an exaggeration to say that I feel as comfortable around Asians as Caucasians, maybe more so. That mindset can be traced back to my experience in high school (1979-1983). Lowell High School was the finest public high school in San Francisco and although at first I was not all the enthusiastic about it, I think now it was a tremendous opportunity to study there. The student body of Lowell High School was about seventy percent Asian American, primarily Chinese. Often I was the only Caucasian in the room at school.

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Portrait of the Chinese Ecologist Chen Minhao (Essay, November, 2011)

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Emanuel Pastreich

Circles and Squares

November 28, 2011

 

Portrait of the Chinese Ecologist Chen Minhao (陈敏豪)

I was a graduate student in Japan back in 1991, working on my master’s thesis at University of Tokyo and I had just started to think about returning to the United States for a Ph.D. program in East Asian studies. I was particularly interested in Ming literature, because it had had such an impact in Japan during the 18th century—my field of specialization. In my search for good graduate programs, I had been introduced to University of Indiana, specifically to Professor Lynn Struve, a scholar of Ming/Qing history with whom I thought I might study with in the United States. I wrote to her and learned that she would be spending the summer in Shanghai at Fudan University. I quickly bought a ticket and made an appointment to stay at the

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A Woman as the Next President of KAIST “카이스트의 여성 총장을 기대한다” (in Korean)

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이만열 Emanuel Pastreich

경희대 후마니타스 칼리지 교수)

Circles and Squares

2011.11.27

“카이스트의 여성 총장을 기대한다”

카이스트(KAIST)는 대한민국 과학의 방향 및 방법의 선도자로서 중요한 역할을 맡고 있다. 지난 7년 동안 카이스트의 혁신은 대한민국의 혁신으로 재빠르게 이어진다. 로버트 포플린 미국 스탠퍼드대 교수가 총장으로 임명됐을 때 카이스트는 새로 국제적인 전망을 제시하고 한국 연구기관의 국제적인 역할을 강조하면서 한국 교육제도에 적지않은 영향을 미쳤다. 또한 카이스트 서남표 총장 부임이후 카이스트 대학운영및 교육개혁에  대한 국민적 공감대를 형성하는 계기도 마련했다.

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