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Why China Champions Studies of Distant Pasts
Beijing gathers world's top classics academics for answers to today's global challenges
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In an increasingly volatile world, China is trying something different. >From Nov. 6 to 8, Beijing hosts the first-ever World Conference of Classics, aiming to encourage the world to draw from the wellspring of ancient wisdom for better mutual understanding. In a gesture that underscores the significance of the event, Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter to this conference that attracts over 400 heavyweight scholars and cultural luminaries.
Against the backdrop of intense great-power competition in politics, trade, and technologies, it borders on peculiar to see China place such a level of emphasis on a platform dedicated to cultural exchange and reflection. The prominent American philosopher Roger T. Ames commented, “I think China is taking the right road in focusing on culture rather than politics.”
“PLATO GOES TO CHINA”
In spite of the growing Sinophopic hysteria fanned by some Western media and politicians, Western cultural elements, classical studies in particular, become increasingly front and center in Chinese academia. And the remarkable scale and depth of research into Western antiquity by Chinese scholars has amazed some of their peers from Europe and America.
Natalia Vogeikoff-Brogan, the director of Archives at American School of Classical Studies at Athens, made her first trip to China to attend the conference, which is jointly held by China and Greece. Years ago, she discovered a Chinese metallic vase gifted to her institution by Luo Niansheng, an alumnus who made history in the 1930s as the first Chinese student to study in Greece. Luo not only pioneered the Chinese translation of a plethora of ancient Greek classics including Homer’s Iliad, Euripides’ Medea, and Aesop's Fables, but he also made an indelible mark by compiling the first and only ancient Greek-Chinese dictionary.
Inspired by Luo’s transformative experience, Vogeikoff-Brogan recently conducted a meticulous archivist research and published a well-received article that captures Luo’s brief yet impactful academic stay in Greece. “I'm extremely happy to see that there is an interest in ancient Greek classical studies in China,” said Vogeikoff-Brogan.
Following what is later known as the New Culture Movement in the 1920s, Chinese intellectuals began to expand their understanding of Western antiquity with a mix of modernity and openness. And the shift was critical to the establishment of Western classics as an academic genre in the country, in which Luo played a foundational role.
One century into that drive of learning and research, China has now boasted more than twenty universities offering courses and degrees focusing on Western classical studies. Every year, large numbers of Chinese students follow Luo’s example to leave their academic footprints at foreign institutions. And the enthusiasm has extended beyond campus, with general reading materials on Greek mythology or Roman philosophy becoming a staple in bookstores.
In a 2023 book titled Plato Goes to China, the author Shadi Bartsch, a professor of classics of the University of Chicago, expressed her fascination about a trend where the works of ancient Greek philosophers “have sparked the interest of Chinese intellectuals, journalists, reformers and nationalists.” And she was convinced that Chinese interest in Western classics is driven by the quest to give China a vision of the future by understanding Western cultural roots.
Ironically, Western classical studies are losing ground in the West, mostly due to dwindling funding and proliferation of political correctness. Princeton University broke with the centuries-long tradition and scrapped language requirements of ancient Greek and Latin for students applying for classics majors. Howard University, a historically black institution located in Washington D.C., went a step further and removed its classics department altogether.
“I think it is very dangerous,” said Roger T. Ames, who once taught at the University of Hawaii and is now a chair professor of humanities at Peking University. “Humanities is where real education comes from, and there's a difference between education and training.”
The World Conference of Classics, on the other hand, is testimony to China’s ambition of exploring further cultural connections. One highlight of the conference was the inauguration of the Chinese School of Classical Studies at Athens, which is set to be on par with the one where Vogeikoff-Brogan now works and Luo Niansheng once studied.
“For a Chinese institute in Greece, it has to happen,” said Vogeikoff-Brogan, referring to the nearly-150-year-old American School of Classical Studies at Athens and similar overseas institutions in Greece set up by sixteen other countries. “Maybe it will be the first step to create a department of Chinese studies in one of the four big universities in Greece.”
CHINA’S, OR CHINESE CLASSICAL STUDIES?
The ongoing conference, which naturally focuses on global classical studies, has brought together not just world scholars specializing in Western classics, but also those dedicated to the studies of ancient Chinese records and scriptures.
It is an interesting development in that the term “classical studies” was long understood as antiquity research merely on ancient Greece and Rome, even in China. However, recent years have seen a growing clamor for the inclusion of Chinese classical studies into that general category.
Hans van Ess, a German sinologist who spoke at the opening ceremony, touched upon the conference’s naming and dated the first use of the Chinese phrase “classics” back to a magnum opus on history 2,000 years ago. Up until the early 20th century, the Chinese term in question remained synonymous with time-honored ancient Chinese texts and scriptures. The narrow explanation of the word was only a brief aberration in its history.
The idea of “Chinese classical studies” was reportedly first introduced by a renowned Chinese palaeographer in the year 2000. This proposal aimed to spotlight the classical literature that came before Qin (221 BC-207 BC) or Han Dynasty (202 BC-220 AD), paving the way for a new academic discipline. Today, there’s a growing discussion in China about setting up a “brand new” discipline that covers both Chinese and Western classical studies, providing a more inclusive and comprehensive understanding of “classics” with a globalized vision.
“If you only know about China, or only know about Greece, you will never know what is particular and special about China or Greece, and what is shared with other ancient civilizations,” said Martin Kern, a professor in Asian Studies at Princeton University.
The view was echoed by He Fangying, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and one of the event’s coordinators. “China’s classical studies should incorporate research on both Chinese and Western antiquity,” she said, while pronouncing the uniqueness of the Chinese classics tradition in its uninterrupted continuity.
"Students educated within this new system are more likely to see beyond the dichotomy between the East and West,” said Peng Xiaoyu, a professor of the history department and the director of the Center for Classical and Medieval Studies at Peking University. Peng argued that it is far from adequate to simply recognize the concept of Axial Age, which only represents a branch of historical philosophy. The point, however, is to act on the integration in day-to-day researches, and in education including solid programs in philology, paleography and diplomatics.
It now presents a golden opportunity for the leapfrog development of Chinese classical studies. Just like the Renaissance in Italy, the Enlightenment movements in Britain and France, and the Weimar Classicism in Germany, which all revitalized and repurposed ancient Greek and Roman culture for their respective times, an initiative enshrined as the "Second Integration" in China’s official expressions seeks to introduce “a new emancipation of mind” by bringing out the full value of the nation’s fine traditional culture in today's context.
In addition, a series of recent archaeological breakthroughs across the country have validated and bolstered the research on ancient texts. “To be a Chinese scholar today is hugely exciting,” said Ames. “We're recovering all of this new material to understand China.”
However, Chinese classical research and archaeological findings have always been treated with lukewarm reception in the West. In 2021, an American scholar authored an article that lamented Western media outlets for lavishing with attention the uncovering of the “Lost Golden City” in Egypt while casually ignoring the equally stunning discoveries at China’s Sanxingdui site.
Ames attributed the prejudicial coverage to “deficits in understanding.” “What I'm expecting from this World Conference of Classics is to expose Western scholars of Western classics to Chinese classics and educate them on the importance of being inclusive when it comes to understanding world classics,” he said.
FROM ANTIQUITY TO MODERNITY
Despite many scholarly or even technical topics that run through parallel seminars, the conference is themed by one practical subject: “Classical Civilizations and the Modern World.”
This theme strikes a chord with a flickering existential crisis the world classics disciplines sometimes find themselves in. As a matter of fact, modern Western classical studies were born exactly on the questioning of its own raison d’etre. In the late 18th century, its founding father Friedrich August Wolf famously challenged the authenticity of ancient Greek texts through a historicist lens. And the discussion following what is traditionally called the “Homeric Question” has vexed classicists for generations.
Today, the “Homeric Question” prompts us to ponder: In classical studies, how can humanism, which is centered on drawing wisdom for real-life purposes, coexist with historicism, which is about the pure pursuit of knowledge? Or in other words, can classical studies maintain its relevancy in educating and shaping minds in modern society?
Apparently, most Chinese scholars offer an encouragingly optimistic answer to this Western quandary. “What is classical is precisely the most modern,” said the assistant professor Yan Di from Tsinghua University, who recently provided academic insight into Greek mythology for a video game company looking for inspiration. “Classics readers from different eras are able to pose questions and draw conclusions in ways relevant to their own times.”
For China, which inaugurated its own path of modernization with Chinese characteristics, tapping into classical traditions becomes vital for educating its own citizens and gleaning insights for innovation. At a meeting on cultural inheritance and development last June, Xi Jinping stressed the critical task of “building a modern Chinese civilization.” According to Gan Yang, a chair professor of Xinya College at Tsinghua University, “Modern Chinese civilization is deeply rooted in its ancient past, not a whole new different entity.”
“Instead of merely dwelling on the past, today’s classical learning should essentially be a call to action, inspiring the shaping of the Chinese civilization’s future,” said He Fangying.
In this light, the evolution of Chinese classical studies also offers exciting possibilities that extend beyond China’s own growth, shedding light on new vocabularies and concepts that might invigorate global governance. The “Thucydides Trap,” a notion borrowed from the ancient Greek classics, is on the verge of being a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is a cry for new answers from fresh perspectives.
As Ames keenly noted, “Chinese culture has a very important contribution to a changing world culture in terms of inclusiveness, in terms of trying to get the most out of our relationships, in terms of understanding our interdependence.” In this sense, today’s world might be in need of a revisit to the past more than ever.
Xu Zeyu, founder of Sinical China, is a senior journalist with Xinhua News Agency. Email: xuzeyuphilip@gmail.com
Tian Zijun is a Xinhua journalist and researcher of Sinical China. Email: jamietian2014@outlook.com