The University of Macau (UM) Faculty of Arts and Humanities recently held the Macao Humanities Forum. The event featured Prof Fu Gang from Peking University, who delivered a lecture titled ‘How Do We Understand Pre-Qin Literature and Documents?’. Involving both in-person and virtual elements, Prof Fu’s lecture attracted nearly 200 participants, including faculty members and students of UM, as well as teachers and students from various secondary schools in Macao.

At the forum, based on his rich knowledge and in-depth research on pre-Qin literature, Prof Fu discussed the concepts, the development context, as well as the nature and characteristics of documents at different stages of Pre-Qin. First, centering on the origin and definition of pre-Qin, he showed that the characteristics of this historical period were different from the later dynasties and the nature of the documents in this era also varied. Pre-Qin had no clear divisions of disciplines as in the later dynasties. The literature discipline had not come to existence; therefore, one could not conduct research using later literary concepts. Afterwards, Prof Fu analysed and explored the characteristics of Pre-Qin through written formats, the stability of scripts, the periodicity of Pre-Qin, the comprehensiveness of documents, and excavated materials.

After the lecture, UM faculty members and students, as well as online participants, had a discussion on the theme with Prof Fu. Held every academic year, the forum aims to provide a platform for world-renowned scholars from different humanities fields to share their latest research results with the UM community and local teachers and students. This is the first lecture of the forum in the 2021/2022 academic year.

Prof Fu is a Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts of Peking University and a professor in the university’s Department of Chinese Language and Literature. He is also president of the Chinese Wen Xuan Research Association and was a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo in Japan, Taiwan University, the Korea University of Foreign Studies, and Beijing University of Foreign Studies, and a visiting scholar at Waseda University in 2017. His representative works include History of Poetry in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, Research on the Selections of Refined Literature (Wen Xuan), Research on Editions of Wen Xuan, Commentary on the Biography of Xiao Tong (co-authored), New Songs from the Jade Terrace and Southern Dynasties, as well as Studies on Literature and Documents of the Han, Wei, and Six Dynasties.

Source: Faculty of Arts and Humanities
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