Weekly News Collection

PHILOSOPHY

Chinese Philosophy advances through inheritance

More than 40 experts gathered at Shanghai Jiaotong University to attend the “First Forum on the Reinvention of Chinese Philosophy”. Cheng Zhongying, a prominent philosopher posited that there are five major crises that threaten the well-being of humankind — eco­logical, economic, political, intellectual and ethical —and Chinese philosophy has the potential to play a crucial role in resolving these.

For innovation, tradition is indispensable. Professor Chen Lai from the Department of Philosophy at Tsinghua University concluded that contemporary Chinese philosophy should advance through inheritance, absorbing the essence of Chinese philosophy’s tradition.

HISTORY

The history of migration, reflex of social evolution

An academic conference titled “Regional Migration in Chinese His­tory”, co-hosted by the Journal of Chinese Historical Studies and Trends of Recent Research on the History of China Press as well as Chongqing Normal University, took place from June 16 to 18. In Chinese history, when large-scale migration shifted toward the South and the West, national identity played an undeniable role in the decision to relocate, some scholars noted.

Southwest University Professor Lan Yong maintained that the study should rise above the level of objective historical narration and focus on the subjective factors concealed beneath the transi­tion of social phenomena.

LINGUISTICS

Terminology arising as new hot spot for linguistics

Terminology is one of the heatedly discussed issues of contempo­rary linguistics. “It derives from lexicology and is closely related with morphology. The structure of terminology, in some sense, can be interpreted as that of morphology because one of the tasks of morphology is to research on the formation of emerging words, including technical terms.” said Sun Shufang, director of Center for Russian Language Literature and Culture Studies at Heilongjiang University. At the recently convened Fourth International Sympo­sium on Terminology and Cognitive Science in Moscow, more than 50 scholars from Russia, China, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania and Finland explored the study.

LITERATURE

The Second China Youth Literature and Art Forum convened

The Second China Youth Literature and Art Forum was convened on June 26, at which attendees reviewed recent developments in Chinese literature and art since the Reform and Opening-up, probing into the current status and new trends in this field.

Director of Chinese National Academy of Arts Wang Wenzhang said: “Literature and art criticism should attach importance to new phenomena arising in this particular realm. At this historical junc­ture when China has become the second-largest world economy, we are able to tell a new Chinese story, and this is the premise of literary and artistic study.”

FOLKLORISTICS

New means required for cultural heritage protection

“The protection of intangible cultural heritage, in some sense, calls for appropriate ‘cultural forms’ that are in line with the con­temporary logic of social culture,” said Lin Jifu, professor from the School of Literature and Journalism at Minzu University of China in the academic symposium titled “Folk Literature and Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection” held from June 21 to 22. With new means of communication and audio-visual forms emerging, a new paradigm and methodology based on ethnology and anthropology is needed for intangible cultural heritage protection, Lin said.

SINOLOGY

Collection of Chinese Confucianism published

On July 3rd, 100 volumes of the Collection of Chinese Confucianism (Condensed Version) were published by Peking University Press. In 2003, Peking University was selected to undertake the compila­tion of the Collection, one of the key projects of the Philosophy and Social Sciences Research under the Ministry of Education. More than 500 varieties of literature from Chinese history and 150 ones from Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese history are included in the condensed version. The full collection, which is scheduled to be finished by the end of 2017, will include as many as 3,000 histori­cal documents from Chinese history.