China seeks to preserve fading fields

The University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' newly established school of rare and endangered disciplines will serve as an academic platform for deciphering ancient scripts, collating rare documents and conducting comparative research across civilizations.

The first of its kind among Chinese universities, the school was established on Friday in Beijing, with a focus on distinctive research fields including ancient ethnic scripts, oracle bone studies, bamboo and silk manuscript studies and classical studies.

The school has developed a distinctive disciplinary system that covers more than 10 ancient ethnic scripts, including Turkic, Tangut, Khitan, Jurchen, Manchu and Tibetan. It has also set up teaching and research departments focusing on oracle bones, bamboo and silk manuscript studies, ancient scripts of northern ethnic groups, ancient scripts of southwestern ethnic groups and Chinese and Western classical studies.

The school has also adopted a dual-supervisor system that pairs chief supervisors with interdisciplinary supervisors and established an integrated undergraduate, master's and doctoral training system. Guided by major national-level research projects, it will incorporate document collation and academic practical training into every stage of student development and turn high-quality research resources into educational resources.

In addition, more than 80 universities, research institutions and cultural and museum organizations jointly launched the National Alliance for Rare and Endangered Disciplines on Friday, an initiative led by the University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

The alliance includes prestigious universities such as Tsinghua University, Renmin University of China, Beijing Normal University and Fudan University; research institutions such as the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences; and cultural and museum organizations including the First Historical Archives of China.

Speaking at the inauguration ceremony on Friday, Zhao Rui, vice-president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the establishment of the school and the alliance would help advance research in rare and endangered disciplines in service of tracing the origins of civilization, border governance, cultural security and the overall work related to ethnic affairs.

"We should always keep the country's vital interests in mind and closely align ourselves with major national strategic needs, while digging deep into the historical memories and civilizational genes contained in rare and endangered disciplines," Zhao said.

Guillaume Jacques, a senior researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, said via video link at the ceremony that ancient script research is of great significance to historiography, linguistics and archaeology.

He said the decipherment and revision of ancient scripts, including Egyptian hieroglyphs, cuneiform and Mayan hieroglyphs, had corrected many established prejudices in Western academic circles.

Jacques called on the academic community to value, support and nurture young scholars in ancient philology and endangered linguistics to pass on academic traditions and sustain the development of these rare disciplines.

Xu Jincheng, secretary of the Party Committee of the University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the university has always placed the development of rare and endangered disciplines in a strategically foundational position, linking it to the continuation of Chinese civilization, the country's long-term stability and security, and the building of an independent knowledge system.

dengzhangyu@chinadaily.com.cn