Everyone knows that there is something distinctive about the Chinese and Japanese writing systems, but what is it? In this talk, Professor Van Norden (author of Classical Chinese for Everyone: A Guide for Absolute Beginners) explains the different types of Chinese characters (pictograms, simple ideograms, compound ideograms, loan characters, and semantic-phonetic compounds), their historical evolution (from oracle bones to bronze inscriptions, to “seal style,” to standard script), as well as the similarities and differences between how characters are used in China as opposed to how they have been used in Japan. Along the way, Prof Van Norden debunks some common myths about Chinese characters.
Bryan W. Van Norden is James Monroe Taylor Chair in Philosophy at Vassar College (USA), and Chair Professor in the School of Philosophy at Wuhan University (China). A recipient of Fulbright, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Mellon fellowships, Van Norden has been honored as one of The Best 300 Professors in the US by The Princeton Review. Van Norden is author, editor, or translator of ten books on Chinese and comparative philosophy, including Introduction to Classical Chinese Philosophy (2011), Taking Back Philosophy: A Multicultural Manifesto (2017), Readings in Later Chinese Philosophy: Han to the 20th Century (2014, with Justin Tiwald), Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy (2nd ed., 2005, with P.J. Ivanhoe), and most recently Classical Chinese for Everyone: A Guide for Absolute Beginners (2019). He has also published multiple op-eds in the New York Times, and written a Ted-Ed video on Confucius that has been viewed over half a million times. Many of his books and articles have been translated into Arabic, Chinese, Danish, Farsi, German, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, and Turkish.
中文和日文的书写系统具有一些共同点，其共同之处在哪？ 有何独特呢？华美人文学会特邀瓦萨学院（Vassar College）万百安教授（Bryan W. Van Norden）于美东时间8月13日晚8时至9时半（北京时间8月14日早8时至9时半）做专题讲座，解说汉字的不同类型(象形、指事、会意、形声、假借)、历史演变(甲骨文-金文-篆字-楷书)，以及其在中国和在日本的使用异同。通过此次讲座，万百安教授将为我们理清一些以往对汉字的模糊认知
万百安博士，美国瓦萨学院（Vassar College）詹姆斯·门罗·泰勒哲学讲席教授（James Monroe Taylor Chair in Philosophy）、武汉大学哲学院讲座教授。曾获富布赖特奖学金、美国人文研究基金及美隆研究基金，并被《普林斯顿评论》（The Princeton Review）评为美国最杰出的300名教授之一。撰写、主编及翻译十余部关于中国哲学的专著，包括《中国古典哲学导论》（Introduction to Classical Chinese Philosophy）《哲学上的拨乱反正：多元文化哲学宣言（Taking Back Philosophy: A Multicultural Manifesto）《中国后期哲学读本：汉朝至二十世纪》（Readings in Later Chinese Philosophy: Han to the 20th Century，与 Justin Tiwald 合著)《中国古典哲学读本》（Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy，第二版，与 P.J. Ivanhoe 合著)，以及最近出版的《大众古文:零基础学习者指南》（Classical Chinese for Everyone: A Guide for Absolute Beginners）。万百安教授的诸多书籍和文章被翻译成阿拉伯语、中文、丹麦语、波斯语、德语、韩语、葡萄牙语、西班牙语和土耳其语等多国语言。他在《纽约时报》上发表过多篇专栏文章，并编写了一个关于孔子的Ted-Ed 视频，其观看数超50万次。
此次讲座将用英语进行