July 27, 2010
Dear Dean Gertler,
I am writing this letter in the hope that the Strategic Planning Committee is to strengthen the higher education of East Asia and comparative scholarship, rather than weakening them. Please forgive me if I haven’t seen any academic field has been “strengthened” by ceasing to exist as an institutional entity, a department. To me, as it is so obvious to my colleagues, the irreversible loses caused by the removal of EAS and Comp. Lit will be much greater than the million which the SPC believes will be saving by amalgamation.
I would like to bring the following points to your attention.
1), East Asian studies is a fruitful academic field of its own, not a series of courses on literature, history, philosophy and religious studies. The cultural categories and primary sources of East Asian studies do not fit the European disciplinary boundaries of literature, history, arts and so on, and naturally require transdisciplinary methodological trainings. From this perspective, the Plan of New School of Language and Literature risks supporting a rather Euro-centric disciplinary regime that many East Asian (as well as comparative) scholars have worked very hard for decades to depart from. The good news is that by now, there has been rather solid academic field of studying the humanities of East Asia. In fact as East Asian humanities and Comparative Literature have freed themselves from an older disciplinary regime, the two fields have become some of the most fruitful fields of research and teaching in the past two decades. That is way they have been in expansion in most of the research universities in North America, Europe, China, Australia, Korea, to name just a few. I hope you and the SPC members be very cautious not to usher an administrative denial to two successful academic fields to which EAS and comparative scholars across the world have devoted many years of efforts?
2), East Asian Studies department at U of T is a thriving, promising department. One of the privilege of being a faculty member at EAS is to be a colleague with brilliant, top-level scholars -- thanks especially to the successful recruitment in the past few years. Beside the good collaboration I have had with Graham Sanders, Atsuko Sakaki, and Andre Schmid, as a China scholar I am particularly happy to have new colleagues such as Yiching Wu, Linda Rui Feng, Janet Poole and Tom Keirstead. Yiching Wu’s work, for example, was widely respected by many senior scholars in the China field around the world even before he completed his Ph. D. Linda R. Feng’s work is so smartly unique that she was able to get some of the best young and senior scholars in China studies to come to Toronto and speak at the city workshop she organized last spring. They and other colleagues have made the department a home of inspiration for me. We share common academic interests and enjoy good working relationship in many aspects ranging from undergraduate and graduate teaching, supervising dissertation, to reading each other’s works. Even the small China reading group that started by 5-6 people in the Purple Lounge of EAS a couple years ago has tripled its size and now involves many in and out of the department. My point is that few EAS departments enjoy such talented faculties, good chemistry and shared intellectual focus at once. And these sure signs of future success make EAS at U of T a promising, exciting place to be. But it takes a department to hold these qualities together and to ensure their future existence. I hope you foresee that if we are dispersed into different departments, each of us will achieve much less in terms contributing to an “EAS program.” In fact my true worry is that the new faculty we have been so lucky to recruit will seek better future elsewhere, in school that provides a research- level EAS program, that is, a department.
3), At a personal level, I feel the Plan will take away the two homes of my research and teaching at once. My graduate training (my Ph.D. is in History), and my research interests on urban culture and environment-related topics are quite removed from language and literature. So are my teaching interests. (I taught EAS undergrads Chinese literature in the past couple years partially to balance the department’s China program where professor Guisso taught history and professor Shen philosophy.) Since professor Guisso retired, my teaching interests have moved back to fields I am more comfortable and qualified to teach, such as the culture of environment. My new undergraduate course in 2010-11 will be offered with greater dependence on curriculum that combines philosophy, environment events, Buddhist culture and modern cultural history of East Asia. These are subjects which EAS department colleagues have already shared an interest in teaching. I also plan to collaborate with cultural institutions and organizations in the East Asian community in courses like this. I simply cannot imagine I will find greater (or even equal) intellectual, curriculum-related and institutional support from the school of language and literature than from East Asian Studies department. It simply does not fit.
4) My graduate teaching is in the similar situation. But my biggest issue is about the trouble the Plan will bring to the current students. The removal of EAS department will bring more harm than benefits to the future work of my graduate students. The 5 Ph. D students under my supervision work on different research topics ranging from the urban transformation of Beijing to the Manchuria film industry in the 1940s. Only one to them is pursuing a topic that falls within the disciplinary boundaries of the new school of language and literature. In fact the faculty and graduate body of a school of language and literature cannot give the students the necessary intellectual environment and academic advices in terms of graduate study, dissertation writing, as well as job search. Most of these students came a long way from US and China, and had given up other good choices to be here. The sudden announcement of the Plan has already stirred fear among students and distracted them from what they should be doing with 100% focus. If the intention of SPC is to eliminate EAS graduate program and stop students from coming, then I must say it has done a good job. And to tell you the truth, I certainly lost some good sleep thinking what is more responsible for the students: to encourage them to stay in a weakened program of the new school or to suggest that they apply to other schools with true East Asian Studies program before it’s too late.
5) Finally, it will be very hard to persuade the international community and scholars and students in China that U of T by any chance supports its China program if Department of East Asian Studies ceases to exist. They will very likely see that education programs of their cultures at U of T are being willingly sacrificed by the policy makers. They will be questions about the logic of amalgamating Department of East Asia Studies -- why not Near and Middle Eastern Studies, English and French -- etc. These doubts need not be true to generate impact. It does not take much to turn potential investors and incoming students away from a school that seems to cut its East Asian Department so willingly.
I hope you and SPC members consider to revise the plan so that EAS can continue exists as a departmental unit. It will prosper in time.
Yours truly
Meng, Yue
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