 |
| (From left) Prof. Yang Yi and Rector Wei Zhao jointly preside over the book launch ceremony |
|
|
| Prof. Yang Yi gives a lecture entitled “From the Beach in Guangdong to the Leading Philosophers from the Pre-Qin Period” |
|
|
University of Macau (UM) Chair Professor Yang Yi, who is considered “one of China’s best literary historians of the 20th century”, recently published four books on the leading philosophers from the Pre-Qin Period, through Zhonghua Book Company. On 12 April 2011 UM held a launch ceremony for the four books, namely Restoration of Lao Tzu, Restoration of Chuang Tzu, Restoration of Mo Tzu, and Restoration of Han Fei Tzu. After the ceremony, Prof. Yang Yi gave a lecture entitled “From the Beach in Guangdong to the Leading Philosophers from the Pre-Qin Period”. On 22 April, UM will hold another book launch ceremony in Beijing International Hotel for Prof. Yang Yi. The ceremony will be followed by a seminar on the studies of cultural classics.
Prof. Yang’s four academic monographs passed the review and editing of Chung Hwa Book Co. and were published within a very short space of time, which is extremely rare in the academic and publishing world. Many community leaders attended the ceremony. In his speech Rector Wei Zhao said that most of the articles in Prof. Yang’s books have been published in prestigious national-level journals and have attracted enormous interest from the academic world. The books are considered as a major breakthrough in the studies of classical Chinese culture. The launch of the four books heralds a good beginning of Prof. Yang’s academic career at UM. In recent years UM is experiencing healthy, rapid development in the field of Chinese. Many UM scholars have achieved international renown and have published many high-quality works, showing a strong momentum. Prof. Yang Yi is UM’s most important academic leaders in the field.
In his speech Prof. Yang Yi thanked UM and the Department of Chinese for the great support. He said the launch ceremony means that UM is now at the cutting edge in the area of humanities. He said the reason why he studies the leading philosophers from the Pre-Qin Period is because that period is a time in China when original thought blossomed on a large scale, so in a sense that era is the Genesis of Chinese thought. He said the leading philosophers from that turmoil period displayed the Chinese people’s ability to do innovative thinking, and their thought together forged the cultural genes of the Chinese people which is passed down from generation to generation, and that’s why, in a sense, studying the leading philosophers from the Pre-Qin Period is studying the origin and cultural DNA of the Chinese people.
Yang Yi was appointed chair professor at UM through international recruitment. He is a member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and an expert on the studies of Chinese literature. He is considered by the Chinese Academy of Science as “one of China’s best literary historians of the 20th century”. He has published, both at home and abroad, more than thirty books and over two hundred papers which collectively contain more than six million words. The History of Chinese Modern Novel (three volumes, 1.5 million words), a masterpiece that took Prof. Yang ten years to complete, is the first multiple-volume book on literary history written by a single author. After publication, the book received widespread acclaim both at home and abroad, and so far it has been reprinted a dozen times. Moreover, the book has been chosen as a teaching material for university students of liberal arts, and some renowned foreign universities have made the book basic reference material and required reading for postgraduate students. Prof. C.T. Hsia at Columbia University hails Prof. Yang Yi as “the first in the new generation to study the history of the novel and literature”.
