📚【Registration for physical courses and online courses】《Lectures at Su Shu Lou in Qian Mu’s Former Residence》 – Cultural Reading Series: “Reading Lü Simian: Mr. Lü Simian’s Four Philology Lectures”, Teacher Fu Kechang, May 24, 2015
🚪Any door of registration website:
https://www.beclass.com/rid=294fed667e34b6f62f45
Mr. Lu Simian (1884-1957) was an important historian and educator in modern China. He was rigorous in his academic research and read the Twenty-Four Histories many times, but he was not satisfied with the Qianlong and Jiaqing textual research, but was committed to integrating it into his own thinking. He advocated that learning should be combined with reality and opposed academic pursuit for the sake of academic pursuit. However, he stayed away from politics and lived a simple life. He once said: "In conducting myself, I always take the ancient sages and scholars as my role models", but he also said that he was "deeply convinced" of Marxism-Leninism. However, it is well known that Mr. Lu is diligent and honest in his studies and is undoubtedly a scholar with his own unique ideas. Therefore, these seemingly tortuous thoughts and attitudes mentioned above actually reflect a specific context of the times and also demonstrate a transcendent life type.
From 1923 to 1925, Mr. Lu Simian taught at Jiangsu Provincial No. 1 Normal School, teaching philology courses. The relevant lecture notes he wrote for this purpose were later supplemented and revised, and a total of four books were formed: "On Chapters and Sentences", "A Study on the Changes of Chinese Characters", "A Brief Explanation of Character Examples", and "A Study on the Characters of the Shuowen Jiezi". Today, philology is often viewed as a specialist discipline. But in ancient times, philology, which was called "primary school", could be said to be the foundation for learning. The "Book of Zhou" states that "children should start elementary school at the age of eight", and Lu Futing even believed that children could start learning at the age of five or six, which shows the importance the ancients attached to this.
In fact, traditional philology is not far away from us today. Mr. Lu once said bluntly: "The original meaning of the two words 'Zhangju' and 'Ju' are the punctuation marks of today"; he also said, "If you want to learn, you must read more; if you want to read ancient books, you must first learn to read." In other words, we have been learning phonetic notation, literacy, and punctuation since childhood, which is actually in line with the ancient "primary school". However, the Chinese characters have been continuous from ancient times to the present, which is truly unique. Therefore, these horizontal, vertical, left and right strokes in daily writing seem to contain an entire cultural history, rich and profound.
On September 29, 1957, Mr. Lu finished rewriting the last chapter of the first edition of "A Brief Explanation of Character Examples", "The Advantages and Disadvantages of Chinese Characters", and changed the title to "On the Reform of Characters". Ten days later, Mr. Lu passed away. His last work abandoned ideology and insisted on observing the evolution of writing from a historical perspective, criticizing the writing reform of "simplifying Chinese characters" at the time. From this point of view, Mr. Lu’s philological research is still in dialogue with the contemporary world - we are still facing an unfinished historical project.
In this issue of Su Shu Lou Lecture, we invite everyone to come on site at 14:00 on May 24th to read with Professor Fu Kechang the lecture notes of Jiangsu First Normal School a hundred years ago, and see how Mr. Lu integrated phonology, exegesis, and archaeological materials, and integrated the spirit of "comprehensiveness" and "practical application" in his historical research, using philology to trace the ancient times and further understand the modern times.
📆Event time: May 24, 2025 (Saturday), 14:00 – 16:00
🏡Event location: Classroom C508, 5th Floor, Qinpu Building, Boai Campus, Taipei City University (No. 1, Aiguo West Road, Zhongzheng District, Taipei City), online courses
👨🏫Activity speaker: Mr. Fu Kechang
🔔Activity fee: free
🚀Online live broadcast information
The course live broadcast URL will be announced on the "Qian Mu Former Residence-YouTube Channel" and "Qian Mu Former Residence-FB Fan Page" after the course starts! Everyone is welcome to ask questions and discuss in the comment section!
# Lü Simian # Philology Lecture Notes
# On Chapters and Sentences # On the Evolution of Chinese Characters
# Character Examples # Shuowen Jiezi Wenkao
# Jiangsu Provincial No.1 Normal University
# Primary School # Epigraphy # Explaining Chinese Characters
# Character Reform # Traditional or Simplified Chinese Debate
# Fu Kechang # Su Shulou Lecture Hall
# Former Residence of Qian Mu # Online Course
📚【Registration for physical courses and online courses】《Lectures at Su Shu Lou in Qian Mu’s Former Residence》 – Cultural Reading Series: “Reading Lü Simian: Mr. Lü Simian’s Four Philology Lectures”, Teacher Fu Kechang, May 24, 2015
