The National Humanities Center is pleased to announce the launch of a four-year project that will bring three scholars each year from leading universities in Greater China for residential fellowships, beginning in fall 2014.
Supported by a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation and four partnering universities — Fudan University (Shanghai), National Taiwan University (Taipei), The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Tsinghua University (Beijing) — the Chinese Scholars Program will give selected scholars an opportunity to spend a year in the rich and productive environment of the National Humanities Center. During their fellowship year, scholars will be able to pursue their research in an interdisciplinary and international community where they can share perspectives, exchange information, and form long-lasting connections with their colleagues.
This innovative program continues a long relationship between the NHC and the Luce Foundation, which has previously supported fellowships for American scholars working in the fields of Asian Studies, theology, and American art. With this grant, the Center is able to work in a dedicated partnership with leading Chinese universities to enrich the scholarly lives of their humanities faculty. Each of the participating Chinese universities will nominate exceptionally promising early to mid-career scholars working in a humanistic field. These candidates will be further reviewed as a part of the Center’s annual fellowship selection process. Chinese Scholars at the National Humanities Center will, like all Center Fellows, be the beneficiaries of the Center’s long experience in creating optimal conditions for scholarly productivity and creativity and have access to scholarly resources and opportunities not easily obtained elsewhere.
Between 1981 and 1992, the National Humanities Center hosted eight Fellows from the People’s Republic of China, and NHC President and Director Geoffrey Harpham is pleased to have scholars from Greater China once again among the Center’s Fellows. “Considering the very rapid recent advances made by Chinese higher education and scholarship, and the embrace by leading Chinese universities of ‘comprehensive education,’ which gives a prominent place to the humanities, the time is right for an initiative that will expand and deepen channels of communication between China and the Western academy,” he said.
“We are pleased that our grant will help the National Humanities Center reestablish ties with Chinese institutions, offer Chinese humanists an opportunity to develop their scholarship in a supportive academic environment, and bring Chinese humanistic scholarship to the attention of Americans,” said Helena Kolenda, Program Director for Asia at the Luce Foundation.