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Template:Chinese name Wang Hui (Chinese: 汪晖; pinyin: Wāng Huī) is a professor in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature, Tsinghua University, Beijing. His researches focus on contemporary Chinese literature and intellectual history. He was the executive editor (with Huang Ping) of the influential magazine Dushu (读书, Reading) from May 1996 to July 2007.[1] The US magazine Foreign Policy named him as one of the top 100 public intellectuals in the world in May 2008.[2] Wang Hui is the recipient of many awards for his scholarship, and has been invited as Visiting Professor at Harvard, Bologna (Italy), Stanford, UCLA, Berkeley, and the University of Washington, among others, over the last decade. In March 2010, he appeared as the keynote speaker at the annual meeting for the American Association of Asian Scholars, the first time a Chinese citizen was invited to address this central professional association.
Since the 1990s, Wang Hui has been an agenda-setting figure in the contemporary Chinese intellectual landscape; translations of his work into numerous languages have also made him an influential scholar of Chinese studies around the world. A leading left liberal thinker, he has been at the center of numerous public debates since the publication of his path-breaking essay, “Contemporary Chinese Thought and the Question of Modernity” in the mid-1990s. This essay aroused fierce and enduring intellectual controversy. Under his co-editorship, China’s principal journal of ideas, Dushu, became a forum for many key theoretical disputes and policy discussions. Readers and commentators became polarized over the journal’s political line and intellectual quality during his tenure, and his forced resignation in 2007 ignited another debate among the Chinese intelligentsia. The first volume of his magnum opus, The Rise of Modern Chinese Thought, was published in 2004, and the fourth and final volume in 2009. Well received by many scholars of modern Chinese intellectual history, it met with almost complete silence from his political adversaries. The British-based New Left Review published a critical but appreciative review of the book in its March/April 2010 issue, citing the study’s major achievements and its fulfilment of grand ambition. The English translation of his four-volume magnum opus, The Rise of Modern Chinese Thought, is expected to be finished by 2010.[3]
Biography
Wang Hui was born in Yangzhou, Jiangsu, in 1959. He completed his undergraduate studies at Yangzhou University, and then graduate studies at Nanjing University and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences where he received his Ph.D. in 1988. As a sent-down youth during the Cultural Revolution, Wang Hui labored for several years among factory workers near his hometown.
Wang Hui was a participant in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. He was detained and questioned about his involvement, and sent to compulsory "re-education" (“锻炼”) in Shaanxi for one year.[4] Through his many publications and journalistic endeavors, he has repeatedly called attention to the human suffering that economic reforms have visited on farmers, laid-off workers, women migrants, and other weak sectors of society; for these views, he has been called the leader of the New Left although Wang Hui has cautioned journalists that he prefers not to embrace this label:
Actually, people like myself have always been reluctant to accept this label, pinned on us by our adversaries. Partly this is because we have no wish to be associated with the Cultural Revolution, or for that matter with what might be called the 'Old Left' of the reform-era CCP. But it is also because the term New Left is a Western one, with a very distinct set of connotations – generational and political – in Europe and America . Our historical context is Chinese, not Western, and it is doubtful whether a category imported so explicitly from the West could be helpful in today's China.[5]
Professor Wang has authored dozens of books, articles and public statement on the scholarly and socio-political issues of the day. These are too numerous to fully list, but are easily located. Among his major accomplishments are ten books, six co-edited volumes, and a steady stream of essays, research papers, reviews and public dialogues. A representative portion of his work has been translated into English and other languages. Major media outlets from Le Monde to The New York Times have commented on his importance to international flows of scholarship and opinion.
Wang Hui’s monographs include, in Chinese, From An Asian Perspective: The Narrations of Chinese History (亞洲視野:中國歷史的敘述, 2010); For Alternative Voices (別求新聲, 2009); Depoliticized Politics (去政治化的政治, 2008); The Rise of Modern Chinese Thought (four volumes), (現代中國思想的興起, 2004-2009); and Rekindling Frozen Fire: The Paradox of Modernity (死火重溫, 2000). His books translated into English include the forthcoming The Rise of Modern Chinese Thought (four volumes); The End of Revolution: China and the Limits of Modernity (Verso, 2010); China’s New Order: Society, Politics, and Economy in Transition, translated by Ted Huters and Rebecca Karl (Harvard University Press, 2003); Shisō kūkan toshite no gendai chūgoku (Modern China as a Space for Thinking), translated by Murata Yujiro, Nasuyama Yukio, and Onodera Shiro (Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 2006); and A New Asian Imagination (in Korean; Seoul: Creation and Criticism Press, 2003).
Problems in the Chinese Intellectual World
Wang Hui’s politics, his out-spoken demeanor, and his visibility in the global intellectual arena have rendered him a high-profile target for his adversaries in China. During his editorship of Dushu, he was accused of irregularities in the selection of an award, though he was abroad in Seattle at the time and had no hand in the process. These charges were proven false. He and his co-editor, Huang Ping, were removed from their editorship in 2007 for unknown official reasons. Throughout their tenure as editors, Wang Hui was repeatedly criticized by political opponents in China’s intellectual circles for his left-leaning orientation; these included an accusation that the journal intended to reverse the verdict on the Cultural Revolution, because a few articles calling for serious research on the period had been published in Dushu. Since the advent of the internet, criticism of Wang Hui and other left-leaning intellectuals has become a minor cottage industry.
In March 2010, what has been called “Wang Hui Gate,” or “The Wang Hui Plagiarism Incident” erupted; at the time of writing, the situation continues to develop. Initially, Professor Wang Binbin from Nanjing University accused Wang Hui of plagiarism, citing what he deemed to be improper use of footnote protocols and incorrectly cited passages in Wang’s dissertation book, published twenty-two years ago. [6] Wang Binbin published this accusation in an academic journal; [7] it was almost immediately reprinted in ''Southern Weekend'', a Guangzhou-based mass-readership journal, on March 25, 2010. [8] Independent and often anonymous investigations conducted online by self-appointed experts have focused on Professor Wang’s dissertation, pointing out where Professor Wang was sloppy in his citational practice. They have shown, for example, that Professor Wang incorrectly cited M.B. Khrapchenko and F.C. Copleston. [9] [10] In the wake of the initial internet furor, Professor Wang Binbin suggested further that Wang Hui may have improperly cited R. G. Collingswood's canonical book, The Idea of History. [11] These accusations have generated an uproar in the online community and among Chinese scholars more generally.
At the time of writing, accusations and counter-accusations continue to accumulate. Several intrepid junior scholars have taken on the original allegations and provided evidence for sloppy citational practices, but not for plagiarism. These careful debunkings can be found at the websites noted at the end of this article. The status of further accusations are now the subject of a legal action and have yet to be adjudicated. Two issues seem to be driving this crisis in the intellectual world. First, Chinese academia has been beset by plagiarism over the past two decades. Plagiarism is defined by the intent to pass someone else’s work off as your own, or by quoting or paraphrasing other people’s words and ideas without acknowledgement. In the Chinese academic scene (as in the pressure-filled halls of academia more generally), a number of proven plagiarism cases have become public, creating prima faci suspicion around academics and intellectuals in China. This is a serious issue and a fueling factor in the current situation. The charges against Wang Hui have clearly tapped into this deep well of suspicion.
Second, since the mid-1990s, the Chinese academic community has emerged as a dynamic entity. Chinese universities have come to resemble those in other parts of the world and, along with various research centers, a spirit of relatively free discussion has been fostered and encouraged within them. This contentious, yet still scholarly, academic climate seemed to have laid to rest the serious impediments to scholarship that were the ugly legacy of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR, 1968-1978). Wang Hui’s emergence as an original thinker owes much to this new climate, with its tolerance and widely acknowledged importance to national and international discussion and affairs. His access to and deep curiosity about international scholarly trends, his dialogue with Chinese compatriots and others around the world, and his commitment to bringing the Chinese past to bear on the global present are all evidence of Wang Hui’s creativity and independent turn of mind.
The current involvement in academic adjudication by a media conglomerate – Southern Weekend Group, which has played a major role in fueling the plagiarism charges against Wang Hui – has raised the specter of a new phase of academic discourse and its relationship to the media and the public. Will the media, along with netizens, now target university professors for special “investigations” to repudiate research, publications and social advocacy? The involvement of both traditional media and the internet in casting suspicion on those whose opinions and politics they may not support is a major factor in the current crisis featuring Wang Hui.
Most professors have no direct line to the traditional mass-media outlets. When attacked, their only recourse is to participate in anarchic online discussions. Despite initimidation and threats, many are defending Professor Wang on various websites. While most acknowledge that Professor Wang’s occasional lapses in citational practice are not ideal, they strive to emphasize that such slip-ups are far from plagiarism and are common among even the most careful academics. These scholars, unaffiliated with the political positions that characterize the adversarial sides, have published careful reviews and rebuttals of the allegations against Wang Hui. At the same time, they have worked hard to clarify what has remained obscure in the media-fomented, online frenzy: the proper definition of plagiarism, and the purpose of footnotes and citational practices in scholarship.
The following scholars have published on websites. Many are stressing the need to reestablish scholarly decorum and due process. See for instance:
3月24日首先在"当代文化研究"网站上出现署名钟彪的网文,《学术"私律"与"莫须有"》,此文后在各大网站转载,是第一篇正面回应王彬彬的攻击,并试图从学术规范的历史梳理中探讨王彬彬的攻击的荒谬的文章,全文可参考以下网址:http://www.douban.com/group/topic/10471414
舒炜:《"王彬彬式搅拌"对学术的危害》,《北京青年报》2010年4月10日http://bjyouth.ynet.com/article.jsp?oid=64627386
魏行:《媒体暴力与学术独立----关于一起媒体公共事件的备忘录》,是就此次事件中关于媒体暴力尤其是网络在评价学术问题上体现的暴力倾向的非常详尽的分析文章,最早于2010年4月15日出现在"左岸文化网",网址:http://www.eduww.com/Article/201004/27357.html
魏行:《答"读品"》,2010年4月19日,原刊"左岸文化网",网址:http://www.eduww.com/Article/201004/27383.html。
《京华时报》3月25日首先披露消息,《清华大学教授汪晖被指抄袭:汪晖希望由学术界自己澄清钱理群称引文不规范不同于剽窃》但一开始就有钱理群的辩护,这也是为后来倒汪者所非常忌恨的。http://epaper.jinghua.cn/html/2010-03/25/content_531076.htm
《京华时报》3月26日继续报道,鲁迅研究界几位知名学者孙郁、赵京华、钱理群等接受采访,《多名专家称抄袭说难成立》。http://epaper.jinghua.cn/html/2010-03/26/content_531528.htm
杨念群:谈谈学界批评之乱象 http://www.aisixiang.com/data/32907.html
李猛:《媒体以这样的"酷吏"作风行事,算得上公正吗?》,网址http://www.douban.com/group/topic/11381104/?start=0
See also
- Contemporary Chinese Thought and the Question of Modernity, a major 1997 article by Wang
- One China, Many Paths
- Chinese liberalism
References
- ^ China Reading Weekly, July 10, 2007
- ^ Foreign Policy: Top 100 Intellectuals
- ^ Die Zeit, No. 25, June 10, 2009, pg. 36
- ^ 马国川:《汪晖:渐行渐远的思想者》。《经济观察报》,2007年8月6日,p.42。
- ^ One China, Many Paths, edited by Chaohua Wang, page 62
- ^ Sharma, Yojana (2010-04-25). "CHINA: Universities fail to tackle plagiarism". University World News. http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20100424180813702. Retrieved 2010-05-26.
- ^ 王彬彬. 汪晖《反抗绝望——鲁迅及其文学世界》的学风问题. 文艺研究. 2010年第3期.
- ^ 王彬彬:《汪晖〈反抗绝望〉的学风问题》。《南方周末》,2010年3月25日,文化。
- ^ 南方周末编辑部:《网友调查〈反抗绝望〉》。《南方周末》,2010年4月7日,文化。
- ^ Wan, Lixin (2010-04-21). "Real culprit in scandal over plagiarism is our publish-or-perish mantra". Shanghai Daily. http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2010/201004/20100421/article_434800.htm.
- ^ 王彬彬:《读汪晖〈现代中国思想的兴起〉献疑——仅限于第十二章第四节》。《南方周末》,2010年4月28日,文化。