Chinese Department
Xing Wen

 Xing Wen

 Distinguished Professor of Chinese Department and 

 Philosophy and History Research Institute

 Doctoral supervisor


Professor Xing is endowed chair professor, Robert 1932 and Barbara Black Professor in Asian Studies at Dartmouth College (2012- ), Director of The Dartmouth Institute for Calligraphy and Manuscript Culture in China (2014- ), and Associate Dean for Disciplinary Development, Academic Research and Internationalization of the School of Humanities at Southwest Jiaotong University (2017-2020). He received his B.A. in Economics from Nanjing Institute of Grain Economics (current Nanjing University of Finance and Economics) in 1986, and M.A. in Art History from Nanjing Normal University in 1992. He did his Ph.D. work both at the Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences under the guidance of Professor Li Xueqin (1933-2019) and in the Anthropology Department at Harvard University as a post-doctoral student of Professor Kwang-chih Chang (1931-2001), and received his Ph.D. in History from Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 1996. He held the Directorship of the Center for Research on Bamboo and Silk Manuscripts in the School of Archaeology and Museology at Peking University between 2000 and 2002, chaired the Department of Asian and Middle East Languages and Literatures at Dartmouth College in 2014, and is currently President of Society for Chinese Manuscript Culture (2015- ) and President of National Society for Technical Calligraphy Studies (2016- ).


Wildely known for his expertise in the study of excavated early Chinese manuscripts and mathematical humanities, Professor Xing formally proposed “The Study of Bamboo-slip and Silk Manuscripts” 中国简帛学 as a new field of interdisciplinary study at a Wuhan University international conference in 1999, launched the first website for the field 简帛研究网 www.bamboosilk.org in the same year, directed the first national special grant project “The Study of Bamboo-slip and Silk Manuscripts” sponsored by the Ministry of Education of China during 2000-2002, and proposed several innovative interdisciplinary fields, such as Mathematical Art History 数理美术史 (2016), Chinese Mathematical Philosophy 中国数理哲学 (2017), the Authentication Studies of Excavated Manuscripts 简帛辨伪学 (2018), Cognitive Manuscriptology认知手稿学 (2018), Cognitive Bamboo-and-Silk Manuscriptology 认知简帛学 (2018), Cognitive Paleography认知古文字学 (2019), and Cognitive Oracle-bone Studies 认知甲骨学 (2019). He received awards and honors nationally and internationally, such as the 1st China National Award for Outstanding Doctoral Dissertations (1999), Honorary Research Fellow of the Institute of Archaeology at University College London (2000-2002), Blue Key Honor Society Favorite Professor (2005), R. M. McFarlin Faculty Fellow at Trinity University (2005-2007), Elizabeth R. and Robert A. Jeffe 1972 Fellow at Dartmouth College (2009-2010), First Annual “Professor of Dartmouth” (2011), National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Fellowship Award (2012), Dartmouth College Prestigious Award (2012), the 2nd quinquennial “China Fine Arts Award” (2014), as well as Honorary Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Nanjing Xiaozhuang University (since 2019). His extensive publications include Research on the Silk Manuscript Zhouyi 帛书周易研究 (Beijing, 1997), Dao, Neo-Confucian Principle, and Chan Buddhism in Chinese Calligraphy and Painting 道、理、禅与中国书画 (Beijing, 2014), Orchid Pavilion in Chinese Manuscript Culture (Hong Kong, 2015), First Explorations on the Chu Bamboo-slip Calligraphy 楚简书法探论 (Shanghai, 2015), and The Preclassics Era 前经学时代 (Taipei, forthcoming).