Dr. Aili Li
Associate Professor, History Department, Sun Yat-sen University in Guanghzou
Paper Title:
American Commissioners’ Contribution to Sino-American Intellectual Exchanges: A Study Based on the Experiences of E. B. Drew and H. B. Morse.
Dr. Aili Li studies the history of Sino-American Relations with a specific focus on the role of American Commissioners in the Chinese Customs office in the Late Qing Era. Dr. Li is currently conducting research on China’s participation in American world fairs, 1876-1915. She is also translating into Chinese John King Fairbank and Richard Smith’s biography of H. B. Morse.
Abstracts:
When we discuss Sino-American Intellectual Exchanges, a series of images of American missionaries arise in our mind at once. It will be a long name list, from the first ones Elijah Coleman Bridgman and Peter Parker, to Samuel Wells Williams and William A. P. Martin, as well as Young John Allen and Francis Lister Hawks Pott, until the famous last one John Leighton Stuart. They have been known as bridge of Sino-American cultural exchanges for a very long time. Their autobiographies, a huge amounts of books themselves, and innumerable academic works and papers about them, which are all the fully prove. They translated or wrote books on western knowledge in China, concerning natural and social science, literature and religion; they started newspapers to report important events happened in the world; they set up hospitals and medical schools to introduce western medicine to China; of course, we do not forget the large number of educational institutions they established, from primary schools to colleges and universities. On the other hand, through what they wrote, talked and taught in America, all kinds of knowledge about China were communicated to America, its philosophy, its art, history, geography, political system, and the life style of Chinese. All of above expanded considerably Americans perception of China. As an intermediary between the West and the East, some missionaries formulated their opinions about the comparison and blend/fusion of different cultures...