Yu Ying-shih (余英時), a historian and a member of Taiwan's Academia Sinica, has been named one of the winners of the 2006 John W. Kluge Prize for lifetime achievement in the study of humanities, the US Library of Congress announced on Wednesday.
Yu, 76, and the other winner of the prize, historian John Hope Franklin, 91, will share a cash prize of US$1 million.
Noting that Yu has been described by his peers as "the greatest Chinese intellectual historian of our generation" and "the most widely read contemporary historian writing in Chinese" who has written more than 30 books, which span more than 2,000 years of history, a Library of Congress spokesman said Yu deserves the John W. Kluge Prize -- commonly called "the Nobel Prize of the humanities" -- for his achievement.
The spokesman said Yu was not only known for his scholarship but also for his sympathy for the democracy movement in China and his support for the young democracy advocates exiled after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.
Despite Yu's outspoken criticism of the Chinese Communists' policies, most of his scholarly works have been published in China, including a recent 10-volume collection of his Chinese-language works.
Endowed by Library of Congress benefactor John W. Kluge, the Kluge Prize rewards lifetime achievement in a wide range of disciplines not covered by the Nobel prizes, including history, philosophy, politics, anthropology, sociology, religion, the arts and humanities and linguistics.
Franklin and Yu have each played a pioneering role in bringing previously neglected major aspects of American and Chinese history into the mainstream of scholarship and public consciousness of their respective native lands, the spokesman said.
Both have done demanding work using a wide variety of primary documents and historical approaches. Each has had an enduring impact on both scholarship and his society, and has opened a path for others to find new materials and methodologies for understanding both their and our cultures, the spokesman said.
Yu's work examines major topics over two millennia of Chinese civilization; Franklin's work covers three centuries of the history of the United States.
Yu is an Emeritus Professor of East Asian Studies and History at Princeton University.
During his academic career, which began in 1962, Yu taught at Princeton, Harvard, Yale and the University of Michigan.
He also served concurrently as president of New Asia College, Hong Kong, and vice chancellor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong from 1973 to 1975.
He spent the bulk of his academic career at Princeton, where he taught from 1987 to 2001.
In his early 40s, Yu was elected to be a lifetime member of Academia Sinica, the most distinguished academic institution in Taiwan. He was recently elected a member of the American Philosophical Society, according to the spokesman.
A scholar reviewing Yu's nomination stated: "The rare distinction of having been elected to full professorships at Harvard, Yale and Princeton undoubtedly confirms the high esteem in which he is held. However, his actual scholarship is a much more important indication of his lifetime achievement, compared to his career successes."
First awarded in 2003, the Kluge Prize is international; the recipient may be of any nationality, writing in any language. The main criterion for a recipient is deep and sustained intellectual accomplishment in the study of humanity that extends beyond narrow academic disciplines.
Honor guards are to stop performing changing of the guard ceremonies around a statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to avoid “worshiping authoritarianism,” the Ministry of Culture said yesterday. The fate of the bronze statue has long been the subject of fierce and polarizing debate in Taiwan, which has transformed from an autocracy under Chiang into one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. The changing of the guard each hour at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei is a major tourist attraction, but starting from 9am on Monday, the ceremony is to be moved outdoors to Democracy Boulevard, outside the eponymous blue-and-white memorial
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supports peaceful unification with China, and President William Lai (賴清德) is “a bit naive” for being a “practical worker for Taiwanese independence,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in an interview published yesterday. Asked about whether the KMT is on the same page as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on the issue of Taiwanese independence or unification with China, Ma told the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily that they are not. While the KMT supports peaceful unification and is against unification by force, the DPP opposes unification as such and
The government would cancel kendo practitioner Su Yu-cheng’s (蘇郁程) nationality if he is confirmed to have represented China in the World Kendo Championships in Milan, Italy, last week, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday. “We have consulted the Sports Administration and were told that athletes participating in the championships must have the nationality of the country that they represent. They must also present their passports as proof,” council spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) told a weekly news conference. “If Su indeed represented China in the championships, we suspect that he has obtained Chinese nationality.” The Act Governing Relations Between the People of the
FATAL ILLNESS: Untreated symptoms can rapidly worsen to complications such as high fever, seizures and loss of consciousness, and can be life-threatening, a doctor said Hospitals have been reporting dozens of people with heat-related illnesses every day over the past week, given continuous high daytime temperatures, so recognizing the early signs of heatstroke is crucial in preventing serious complications, a Taipei City Hospital emergency physician said. The Central Weather Administration yesterday issued a heat alert for 19 cities and counties across Taiwan, with temperatures in New Taipei City, Miaoli County and Pingtung County likely to exceed 38°C, and temperatures in 12 cities and counties likely to exceed 36°C for three days straight. More than a dozen people were taken to hospitals for heat-related illnesses every day from