A view about Professor M's academic qualification

From http://www1.chinesenewsnet.com/gb/others/jump18.html

It is academically biased and intuitively dangerous to separate “Literary-History-Philosophy”. For one thing, the language carries the thoughts and the thoughts drive the language, which intertwine within the core of the thoughts very closely regardless whether it is Chinese or Western Philosophy or any school of thoughts developed in modern “Philosophy”. “History”, by definition, became “history” only after the “instance” had been made historically. At the moment when an “instance” happened in history, it was irrelevant to “history”, but to the “philosophy” of human behaviors and thoughts. Failing to recognize this intertwined relationship of “Literary-History-Philosophy”, any research would be biased. In so saying, the Western scholars who are illegible in Chinese language but engage in Chinese “Literary-History-Philosophy” research, can only focus on “methodology” or application of “methodology”, which is probably the only thing that Western scholars could “teach Chinese students on Chinese intellectual history”. Again, it is “Chinese intellectual history”, but not “Chinese intellectual(ism)”.

It is pointless to argue that “Tang is very likely to be working on anything remotely related to Chinese philosophy”, but to examine the subjects that Professor Mazumdar worked on: “Sugar and Society” and “Race, Orient, Nation in the Time-Space of Modernity”. One could easily find out it is strictly an application of Western “Methodology” using Western “Philosophy”, which is a very low level of thinking in “Philosophy”, even by Western standards and in Western academic environments, let alone the profound “Confucianism-Buddhism-Taoism” in Chinese Culture and Philosophy.

I would suggest, if Prof. Mazumdar is really “an accomplished professor” or “a strict instructor”, he should try to stay away from “socio-economic history of late imperial China”, or even “women studies and post-colonial discourse”, just clearly define “Time-Space” or “Modernity”, then we would be able to tell whether he is a good historian or a good thinker, irrespectively whether he is “an accomplished professor”. In addition, he might want to reevaluate his interests in “gender studies or economic history”, or simply stay away from “China” or “Taiwan”, and definitely not to meddle in “gender studies in late imperial and modern eras” any more. It is undoubtedly a “dead alley”. Remember, the selection of subjects involves not only academic training, but also philosophy. Lacking of the latter, one might understand why it is so teased that “Most historians don’t know history”, even he is “an accomplished professor”.