The Founder of a Discipline: A Project Note on the Intellectual Growth of Professor Nguyen Huy Quy

Abstract

Having received his education in China, Professor Nguyen felt the strong spirit of Chinese society when he was a student. Above all, he felt a strong Chinese national sentiment everywhere. He reflects on the changes in the Chinese society, particularly with regard to its academic development. Back in the day, social sciences in China were usually a field of studies that served politics. Everything existed for political reasons. This statement was especially true with history studies and historians. He urges people to look at how Confucius was judged before and after the Cultural Revolution to gain a better idea of this statement. Nevertheless, numerous changes have taken place since the end of the Cultural Revolution. He finds that the field of social sciences at present is more objective and less dominated by political ideologies. In that sense, he believes China has done a better job than Vietnam in liberalizing and democratizing academic studies. According to him, the most important development of Vietnamese Sinology has been the founding of the Center for Chinese Studies at the Vietnamese Academy of Social Sciences in 1993. In 1995, a journal of Chinese studies was established.

We are very pleased to have been accorded the opportunity to converse with Professor Nguyen Huy Quy on his intellectual growth. The visit took place in May 2010. The following report is based on our notes. For the interview script in Vietnamese or Chinese, please refer to http://politics.ntu.edu.tw/RAEC/act02.php (Access February 28, 2016).