Zhang Meifang and Wu Hui preface to "Three Thoughts and Discussions: From the South to the North" To the Collection of Scientific and Cultural Questions
□ Jiang Xiaoyuan ■ Liu Bing
□ Brother Liu Bing, 19 years ago (2002), you and I began the "Southern Cavity and Northern Adjustment" dialogue column, which has continued to this day, without interruption or off-date, we have perseverance in doing things, and we can also be shy and boast a little. A few years later, your doctor Zhang Meifang, and my doctor Wu Hui, "see the wise and think together", began to write a dialogue column in the Science Times (now China Science News), "South to North", which also lasted for many years.
Our dialogue columns have been collected into books many times, including "Southern Cavity to The North: A Dialogue on the Relationship between Science and Culture" (Peking University Press, 2007), "Gentle Liquidation of Scientism: South-To-North Adjustment 2" (Peking University Press, 2010), "To Be Scientific Rather Than Ism: A Selection of 100 Issues of "Southern Cavity-North Adjustment" (Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press, 2010), and the latest and most complete collection is the three-volume "New South Cavity North Adjustment Collection" (Shanghai Science and Technology Literature Publishing House, 2021). Now that the dialogue between Zhang Meifang and Wu Hui has also been assembled into a book, it is of course a particularly happy thing for the two of us.
You like to talk about "gender", Zhang Meifang has also been immersed in this regard for many years, and has published many expositions, maybe it is going to be "the young phoenix clear from the old phoenix". Now this "Three Thoughts talk: "South to North" Science and Culture Question Collection" is composed of two female doctors asking each other, there must be someone who is willing or unwilling to let the reader notice the gender of the two authors, right?
■ It is certainly very gratifying to see that our students have also begun their independent dialogue and will publish it, showing that in addition to the attention to scientific culture, the continuation of this dialogue form itself is also very symbolic.
Of course, the two of us who have continued the form of dialogue are women, and we have also paid attention to gender issues to varying degrees and even done in-depth research, which is of course a very happy thing for gender studies, one of the research directions I pay attention to, but after all, these conversations involve not only gender, but also other aspects of scientific and cultural research, and it is also a very interesting conversation. As for others willing or unwilling to notice the gender of the two authors, I think it is not a particularly important matter.
As we also write the foreword to their collection in conversational form, I would like to hear your thoughts on their conversations in terms of topic, content, and style. Our dialogue, in a sense, may still be relatively traditional, and their dialogue is obviously still very different from the dialogue we have been insisting on for a long time, which may be related to the gender of the interlocutors, but it is certainly not limited to this, but it is related to the new characteristics of the new generation of scholars in many other aspects, and also to the many changes in the issues of concern inside and outside the academic circles in recent years. You tell me?
□ I suspect that the two authors of this dialogue collection will not care too much about the gender of the reader, because the first volume of the book is "Women's Topic"—both authors themselves do not hide it.
The setting of the 8 dialogues in the first series should have a relatively large relationship with Zhang Meifang, right? Can she be said to be the mantle of your "history of gender science"? This discussion is still relatively rare, at least in the domestic history of science, so it is quite valuable. Some of their conversations can also be seen as popular explanations of the history of gender science.
The second series, "By the Desk", 11 dialogues, which echoed or responded to some hot topics in domestic scientific and cultural circles. For example, "Half Angel, Half Devil", also talked about Neil Bozeman's "Technology Monopoly: Culture Surrenders to Technology", remembering that we also talked about this book in "South-to-North". Another example is "Slow down, can you slow down?" Two female doctors were drinking a bowl of "thick chicken soup" and talking about how hard they and their friends worked hard, and they couldn't slow down at all. Wu Hui also said that "the old heart feels understanding and comfort", which is really frosty.
The third series of "popular science fiction", 9 dialogues, involved some science fiction film and television works. For example, "District 9", "Avatar", "Frankenstein" and so on. It also involves some popular science books, which may be related to the publishing work that Wu Hui is engaged in.
The last series is "When I Hear And See", 11 dialogues. it is the authors' insights on a broader range of topics. These topics are very diverse, from small disputes in traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine to thinking about the future of mankind.
Judging by the topic, our two students seemed bolder than we were—they dared to talk about big topics. For 19 years, we have always limited our topic to the scope of "scientific culture", which of course has to do with the fact that our dialogue column is on the "scientific culture" page.
I suddenly found that if the two of us talking about "southern and northern tones" and the two of them talking about "coming from the south to the north" is some kind of "isomorphism", then we talk about a smaller topic in a wide-ranging newspaper (Wenhui Reading Weekly/"China Reading Daily"), and they talk about a wide range of topics in a smaller newspaper (the organ newspaper of the Chinese Academy of Sciences), is it not forming some interesting "mutual intertextuality"?
■ What you call "intertextuality" is a very interesting idea. And whether Zhang Meifang you asked can be said to be the heir to the mantle of my "history of gender science", I really dare not answer directly, not because she has done a bad job in this regard, but because I dare not boast that there is any valuable mantle to pass on. Indeed, when she was with me in her Doctoral Dissertation, she did a topic about the historiography of gender science, which can be regarded as a research that I brought her to this field. But in her post-graduation work, although we still cooperate a little in this regard, she herself has worked harder and done more in gender studies, and has achieved more results, including guiding students to do related research. At present, in the study of the history of gender science, it should be said that she is at least a scholar whose research results can be ranked at the forefront in China, and her gender research has also expanded to some issues outside the history of science.
But what I think is more interesting is the similarities and differences between their conversations and ours. From your previous summary analysis, it can be seen that the content they talk about, at least from the perspective of the topic, is related to the areas that you highlight your attention, such as science fiction, or to the areas that I highlight my attention, such as gender, and of course, many of them are related to topics that you and I are more concerned about, such as general scientific culture, ethical disputes in science and technology, and so on. Naturally, there are also some topics that you and I rarely talk about, like you said, they dare to talk about big topics, and the way and style of talking also have their own characteristics.
It is of course a good thing for people of different eras to choose the topic of interest to talk with in different styles, otherwise, if the content and style of their discussions are too similar to ours, then their novelty and value will be greatly reduced. Speaking of this, I have a little reflection, although the dialogue represented by our column of "Southern Cavity and Northern Adjustment" has lasted for nearly 20 years now, but the overall style has not changed much, so who are the main readers who are willing to watch us talk? Wouldn't Zhang Meifang and Wu Hui's dialogue with the topics and styles they are interested in attract some audiences other than the main readers we are talking about, especially the younger generation?
□ You have a point. Perhaps young people will prefer the dialogue between two female doctors.
But when it comes to style, I've always been more conservative on this issue — I like to keep my own style, as long as it's a part of the style that's a relatively fixed reader likes, and that's enough for me. Judging from the fact that every time we talk, we are pushed by the public name of the "China Reading Newspaper" (their public account only pushes a small number of articles on their paper newspapers), we do have a relatively fixed readership of such a part of the talk column.
I remember that many years ago, a philosophy professor at a famous university said to me: "I often read your dialogue column with Liu Bing, but why do you have to put it down to anti-scientism every time?" "I don't remember how I answered him at the time, but what I remember is that I listened to his questions and was very happy, because the philosophy professor's feelings were most likely evidence that our dialogue column already had its own unique style. I'd love to keep that style alive.
Therefore, I am also very happy to see Zhang Meifang and Wu Hui form their own style and maintain it.
■ It is true that people now talk too much about "innovation", and even often "innovate" for the sake of "innovation", and if there is no change in "innovation", everything is almost regarded as conservative, but in fact, sometimes "conservative" is also a kind of persistence, but also a value that can be carried forward. Aiming only at innovation in ideas or forms can have many negative consequences. We can maintain the original style in the dialogue, but also a subconscious insistence, although in the content of the discussion, although it has always been based on "anti-scientism", but there is no lack of novelty, and only in this way can the reader be willing to continue reading.
Of course, when we talk about "conservative", we don't mean that everything is just static. When our students Wu Hui and Zhang Meifang conduct conversations that seem to be similar in form to our conversations in their own style, this is actually an "innovation", and in their conversations, I can feel that they do not have the kind of non-deliberate pursuit of the new and new, but obey their own inner thoughts and feelings. This kind of more "natural" conversation, which shows the wisdom and talent of the two female doctors, will bring the reader a sense of intimacy and resonance. What is even happier is that their dialogue still inherits an "anti-scientist" stance in tone compared to many of the current statements and opinions. At least, in our understanding, such thoughtful and thoughtful statements should be more meaningful to scholarship and society.
There are always inheritances and changes in the world, and I hope that their academics and their dialogues can win more new readers and spread better ideas and values with their style and charm.
August 1, 2021
Institute of History of Science and Culture of Science, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
and the Department of History of Science, Tsinghua University
"Thinking Twice about It: "South to North" Science and Culture Question Collection", Shandong Science and Technology Press, October 2021, 1st edition
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