The year I started my "bitter journey".
Yu Qiuyu
Born in August 1946, Zhejiang native. As early as the "Cultural Revolution" disaster period, he bravely established the grand framework of "World Drama Studies" against the cultural extremism and dictatorship that started with drama at that time. After the disaster, it was published in a timely manner and has been the only authoritative textbook in this field for over 30 years, winning the "National Excellent Textbook First Prize". At the same time, he completed the new "Chinese Drama History" from the height of cultural anthropology, completed the first domestic "Audience Psychology" from the height of reception aesthetics, and created a self-contained system of "Art Creation Studies", all of which have received high praise from the academic circles at home and abroad.
In the mid-1980s, he was promoted as the youngest university president in mainland China at that time and served as the head of the Chinese Professional Professorial Evaluation Group in Shanghai, concurrently serving as the head of the Art Professional Professorial Evaluation Group. He has been awarded honors such as "National Outstanding Contribution Expert", "Shanghai Top Ten Higher Education Elite" and "Chinas Most Respected Cultural Figure".
More than 20 years ago, he resolutely resigned from all administrative positions and high-ranking appointments, and alone searched for the important sites of Chinese civilization that had been buried. The works he wrote not only greatly promoted the protection of cultural relics but also pioneered a generation of "cultural prose" style, with many imitators.
At the end of the 20th century, he risked his life to traverse tens of thousands of kilometers to investigate a series of the most important cultural heritages such as Babylonian civilization, Egyptian civilization, Cretan civilization, Hebrew civilization, Arab civilization, Indian civilization and Persian civilization. As the only humanities scholar in the world who has completed all on-site visits so far, he made new thoughts and urgent reminders about contemporary world civilizations along the way, causing widespread attention at home and abroad.
His books have been on the global Chinese bestseller list for a long time. In Taiwan alone, he has won numerous major awards including the Platinum Author Award, the Quill Literary Award, the Readers Choice Award, and the King Stone Most Influential Book Award.
Over the past decade, he has devoted himself to systematic writings on Chinese cultural heritage, Chinese aesthetics and Chinese character, based on his extensive research and investigation resources. UNESCO, Peking University, and the magazine "Chinese Talents" have repeatedly awarded him for his work, praising him as a contemporary master who combines in-depth research, field investigation and effective dissemination, and is "a master of literature, learning, philosophical thinking and eloquence".
Since 2002, he has been invited to give lectures on "Macro History of Chinese Culture" and "Chinese Culture in the Context of World Civilization" at Harvard University, Yale University, Columbia University, New York University, Library of Congress, and United Nations Headquarters, which have always caused a great stir. In 2008, Shanghai Municipal Education Commission awarded him the establishment of "Yu Qiuyu Master Studio". He is currently the Dean of "Qiu Yu Academy" of China Arts Research Institute, Chief Cultural Consultant of Phoenix Television in Hong Kong, and Dean of Faculty of Humanities and Arts of Macau University of Science and Technology.
