If the "Introduction to Intangible Cultural Heritage" edited by Wang Wenwen was published in 2006, the concept of intangible cultural heritage was put forward to the present, and the construction of the discipline of intangible cultural heritage in China has gone through 15 years. Under the active mediation of Feng Jicai, Wang Fuzhou and others, in March 2021, the Ministry of Education officially included "intangible cultural heritage protection" into the undergraduate major settings of ordinary colleges and universities. The discipline of intangible cultural heritage has taken a substantial step forward.
Why is it that when China is taking off in an all-round way, the government suddenly proposes to strengthen the protection of its own heritage, and after incorporating "archaeology" into the first-level discipline, it is ready to formally incorporate the emerging discipline of "intangible cultural heritage", which was not long ago, into the undergraduate professional settings of ordinary colleges and universities, and start a large-scale construction of related disciplines? This is related to the harsh social reality that China has abundant intangible cultural heritage resources, and at present, existing disciplines cannot scientifically solve the problems faced by intangible cultural heritage protection.
1. The possibility of building the discipline of intangible cultural heritage
Whether intangible cultural heritage can be successfully created depends first of all on whether it meets the conditions of these two aspects: first, whether China has sufficiently rich intangible cultural heritage resources, and second, whether this discipline has laid a solid enough academic foundation.
The success of intangible cultural heritage is related to whether the country where the heritage is located has rich intangible cultural heritage resources. Intangible cultural heritage is different from philosophy, historiography and other disciplines, and it is more like a discipline that emphasizes practical practice and solves practical problems. It was created to help people understand what intangible cultural heritage is and to solve problems in the process of safeguarding and passing on intangible cultural heritage.
China is an ancient civilization with a long history and many nationalities, and it is also the only country among the four ancient civilizations that has not had a broken culture. The fact that culture "has not stopped" does not mean that the material cultural heritage such as the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, the Potala Palace, the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, and the five famous kilns and mahogany furniture that it has created in history still exists, but that the traditional construction techniques and manufacturing techniques that created these material wealth still do not exist. If these ancient traditional construction technologies and manufacturing technologies are still in play, we can responsibly say that Chinese civilization has not stopped flowing in the process of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. In terms of quantity, after 20 years of efforts, the State Council has announced a total of 1557 representative items of national intangible cultural heritage, which are counted one by one according to the declared regions or units, with a total of 3610 sub-items, and there are countless intangible cultural heritage items at the provincial, municipal and county levels. These intangible cultural heritage resources, which enrich the wisdom of ancestors, provide a possibility for the birth of intangible cultural heritage.
The success of intangible cultural heritage is also related to whether the discipline has laid a sufficiently solid academic foundation. As a new science, the creation of intangible cultural heritage requires rich academic accumulation. Chinese has had a tradition of protecting its own culture since ancient times, not to mention the Collection and Collation of Folk Songs and Proverbs in the Spring and Autumn Period, the Music of Lefu in the Han and Wei Dynasties, the Folk Zhiwei Novels in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the Folk Song Jokes in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and the May Fourth Period for Songs and Stories, including the collection and collation of ten sets of Chinese national folk literature and art since the Third Plenary Session of the Twelfth Central Committee after the founding of the People's Republic of China, and the ongoing publication project of the "Chinese Folk Literature Series".
Different from the previous collection, collation and publication, in 2003, the Chinese government launched the Chinese ethnic and folk culture protection project, and then, in 2004, China became a party to the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, focusing not on the previous collection, collation and publication, but on the national efforts to pass on the intangible cultural heritage left to us by the ancestors, and inherit it through the inheritors in a living form.
The discipline construction of intangible cultural heritage has also shown a positive side. In terms of subject textbooks, he has published "Introduction to Intangible Cultural Heritage" (2006) edited by Wang Wenwen, "Oral and Intangible Heritage of Mankind" (2004) and "Interpretation of Intangible Cultural Heritage" (2009) written by Xiang Yunju, "Intangible Cultural Heritage Course" (2007) and "Intangible Cultural Heritage" (2009) written by Yuan Li and Gu Jun, and "Intangible Cultural Morphology" (2019) written by Wang Fuzhou. The publication of these books has made a good theoretical preparation for the discipline construction of intangible cultural heritage.
According to incomplete statistics, at present, more than 400 universities across the country have opened courses on intangible cultural heritage, hundreds of secondary colleges have opened courses related to intangible cultural heritage, and the vast majority of primary and secondary schools and some colleges and universities in the country have launched intangible cultural heritage activities on campus. Intangible cultural heritage and intangible cultural heritage have gradually been integrated into mainstream education in China. Since 2014, in cooperation with Beijing Union University, Capital Normal University, Kaili College and other units, the author has held four training courses for intangible cultural heritage teachers in national colleges and universities. The training course takes the cultivation of intangible cultural heritage teachers in colleges and universities across the country as its own responsibility, and has trained more than 900 students in total, which has prepared talents for the construction of the discipline of intangible cultural heritage in China.
2. The necessity of building the discipline of intangible cultural heritage
Is there a need to create intangible cultural heritage? This is a topic that has been debated for a long time, and it is also a mandatory question for the construction of the discipline of intangible cultural heritage. It has been argued that there are already multiple disciplines involved in the field of intangible cultural heritage, and that the existing theories of existing disciplines can be fully adopted. However, 20 years of practice in the protection of China's intangible cultural heritage has proved that only the existing theories of existing disciplines cannot fundamentally solve the problems faced by the protection of intangible cultural heritage.
(1) There are academic differences in the understanding of the nature of intangible cultural heritage, and there are academic differences in existing disciplines
From the standpoint of intangible cultural heritage, intangible cultural heritage is first and foremost "heritage", that is, what our ancestors left us, rather than the "present product" that has just been created. In the process of intangible cultural heritage protection, the reason why only "heritage" is protected and "existing property" is not to say that there is anything wrong with "existing property", but with the continuous acceleration of social processes, the heritage left by the ancestors is less and less, and it is necessary for us to seize the great opportunity of intangible cultural heritage protection and inherit these heritages in its original form. This is the eternal pursuit of intangible cultural heritage. However, the goals pursued by existing disciplines such as art and economics are completely different from this - the former is to excavate the added value of art, and the latter is to excavate the added value of the economy. At this time, it is easy to start from the position of this discipline, and it is no longer important whether this thing is an intangible cultural heritage. Under the influence of this original discipline concept, it is easy for people to consciously or unconsciously regard those adapted and transformed cultural and creative products, and even the assembly line products that enter mechanized production, as intangible cultural heritage. Since art and economics have their own understandings of intangible cultural heritage, it is almost impossible to use the existing theories of art and economics to ensure the taste of intangible cultural heritage.
(2) In the identification of the selection criteria for intangible cultural heritage, there are existing disciplinary strengths that have not been caught
If we want to protect intangible cultural heritage, we must first know what is intangible cultural heritage and what is not intangible cultural heritage. However, due to the different functions of the disciplines, the selection criteria are naturally different.
For example, in the view of some scholars engaged in artistic creation and art research, the selection criteria for intangible cultural heritage are not "true or not", but "beautiful or not", resulting in the evaluation becoming "beauty pageants", and even want to include some "beautiful" contemporary creations in the intangible cultural heritage list; and once they enter the list, it is easy to transform the "unbeautiful" parts of these intangible cultural heritage items according to their own understanding of "beauty". If we follow this line of thinking, it will become an empty phrase if we want to pass on the legacy left to us by our ancestors in an authentic way.
The selection of intangible cultural heritage from a folklore perspective also has its limitations. Realistically speaking, academic colleagues engaged in folklore research love tradition from the heart. But in their view, folklore can change, then the intangible cultural heritage as folklore can also change. It can be seen that the existing theory of folklore cannot completely solve the problem of the protection of intangible cultural heritage.
There are also problems in using existing theories of economics to select or safeguard intangible cultural heritage. It is easy to force the "intangible cultural heritage" projects that have "effectively stimulated the local economy" into the list, even if they have achieved large-scale mechanized production.
It is advisable to use the existing theories of cultural relics to protect intangible cultural heritage. Because in the view of cultural relics protection, whether it is tangible cultural heritage or intangible cultural heritage, it is essentially an important window for understanding ancient civilizations and ancestral history. However, from the perspective of cultural relics, it is easy to ignore the basic feature of the living inheritance of intangible cultural heritage. If we blindly use the method of protecting cultural relics to protect intangible cultural heritage, the result is the museumization of intangible cultural heritage protection, and the final result is to turn "living heritage" into "dead heritage", which also cannot solve the problem of scientific protection.
The above analysis tells us that it is in fact difficult to solve the problems faced by the protection of intangible cultural heritage through the existing theories of existing disciplines. In order to achieve the scientific protection of intangible cultural heritage, the simplest way is to fundamentally solve the problem of scientific protection of intangible cultural heritage through discipline construction, and this discipline is intangible cultural heritage.
3. Unique perspectives and perspectives of intangible cultural heritage
The emergence of any new science must always have its unique perspective and vision, otherwise it is not qualified to become an independent discipline. So, as a new intangible cultural heritage, does it already have its own unique perspective and vision? The answer is yes.
(1) The study of intangible cultural heritage has its own unique vision
It has been argued that there is absolutely no need for us to establish the science of intangible cultural heritage. Because the main research areas of intangible cultural heritage have been deepened in anthropology, ethnology, folklore, religion, history, linguistics, archaeology, performance, folk literature, architecture and many other disciplines. If we must establish the study of intangible cultural heritage, it is bound to seriously overlap with the above disciplines in terms of research vision.
But this is not the case. The purpose of the establishment of the discipline of intangible cultural heritage is mainly to solve three major problems: first, to clarify the access criteria for the series of intangible cultural heritage lists, to find out which items can be entered and which items cannot be entered; second, to find out the value of these intangible cultural heritages, including its historical, artistic, scientific and social connotations; and the third is to scientifically and systematically put forward the management methods and protection principles of intangible cultural heritage. And these are all questions that have never been studied or rarely studied in various disciplines in the past. It can be seen that although the study of intangible cultural heritage is slightly duplicated from the above disciplines in terms of research vision, in the final analysis, it has an independent and exclusive research space.
(2) The study of intangible cultural heritage has its own unique research perspective
In order to become an independent discipline, it is not enough to have a unique research perspective, but also a unique research perspective. With different research perspectives, people will find more, different, regular things in the same field. For example, the same is the study of traditional festivals, historians pay attention to the history of festivals, folklorists pay attention to festival folklore, religious scholars pay attention to festival rituals, artists pay attention to festival songs and dances, and as a new intangible cultural heritage, its focus is not on the above content, but to see whether these festivals are inherited from history or created in the contemporary era, and how to protect the heritage of these festivals. The above angle is also the one that few people in the past have paid attention to. The significance of the establishment of the discipline of intangible cultural heritage is that it can help mankind find more intangible cultural heritage, can find better rules for the inheritance of intangible cultural heritage, and apply these laws to the protection of all intangible cultural heritage in China and even the world.
Fourth, the study of intangible cultural heritage has its own independent theoretical framework
Different from existing disciplines, in order to more clearly identify intangible cultural heritage, excavate the connotation of intangible cultural heritage, and also provide more scientific theoretical guidance for the protection of intangible cultural heritage, intangible cultural heritage has also designed a significantly different theoretical framework for this purpose. The focus of this theoretical framework is mainly focused on three aspects: first, what is intangible cultural heritage; second, why to safeguard intangible cultural heritage; third, how to protect intangible cultural heritage. If these three questions are elevated to the philosophical level, then "what is" answers the ontological question, "why" answers the axiological question, and "how to do" answers the methodological question. These three questions must be answered by the study of intangible cultural heritage, while other disciplines rarely or do not have to answer them at all.
(1) "What is intangible cultural heritage" is the first question that the discipline needs to answer
The purpose of this question is to help us understand what is and is not intangible cultural heritage. It is the logical starting point of this science, and once there is a problem here, we will be like a child fastening himself—the first one is wrong, and the next one will be wrong. As an experience, whenever "heritage" is involved, the first thing one needs to do is to trace the truth. This is true of tangible cultural heritage, as is the intangible cultural heritage. So, what exactly is intangible cultural heritage? In our view, the so-called intangible cultural heritage must meet at least the following six conditions.
First, there must be representative intangible cultural heritage project inheritors as support. The biggest feature of intangible cultural heritage is the living inheritance, and the carrier of the living inheritance is the inheritor. With inheritors, there is intangible cultural heritage, so the key to protecting intangible cultural heritage is first of all to protect the inheritors.
Second, there must be a long history. Those who are usually less than 100 years old cannot be called "intangible cultural heritage".
Third, it must be passed on to the present day in a living form. Intangible cultural heritage is a kind of heritage that lives in the present and serves the present, and the biggest feature is its "living state".
Fourth, it must be passed down from tradition to the present. This is because the greatest value of intangible cultural heritage is its historical cognitive value, and we need to try our best to pass on the connotations it presents in history.
Fifth, there must be historical understanding value, artistic value, scientific value and social value.
Sixth, intangible cultural heritage exists in traditional oral literature and the language used as its carrier; traditional art, calligraphy, music, dance, drama, music and acrobatics; traditional skills, medicine and calendar; traditional rituals, festivals and other folk customs; traditional sports and entertainment; and other intangible cultural heritage.
(ii) "Why safeguard intangible cultural heritage" is the second question that the discipline needs to answer
If we want to protect intangible cultural heritage, we must clearly explain and explain intangible cultural heritage, and provide more adequate reasons for the protection of intangible cultural heritage. This requires us to conduct more in-depth research from the perspectives of time span, information bearing, state nativeity, social popularity, uniqueness in personality, and endangerment in living state, so as to judge the characteristics of each intangible cultural heritage project.
Intangible cultural heritage is the essence of human civilization, and the exploration of the above values can not only find more reasons for the protection of ancestral heritage, but also help us to make more accurate academic judgments about heritage itself. Although the value of intangible cultural heritage exists objectively, it also needs to be discovered by human beings with their own eyes. The process of safeguarding heritage itself is a process of rediscovery and rediscovery of the value of intangible cultural heritage, which is directly related to the enthusiasm of mankind for safeguarding intangible cultural heritage, our understanding of the heritage of our ancestors, and the future and destiny of our country.
(3) "How to safeguard intangible cultural heritage" is the third question that the discipline needs to answer
"How to safeguard intangible cultural heritage"? This mainly involves two issues: on the one hand, what methods and means should be used to safeguard intangible cultural heritage; on the other hand, what concepts and principles should be used to safeguard intangible cultural heritage. The ultimate goal of this question is to help us find more, better and more scientifically valuable principles and methods of protection.
The methods of protection include: first, to carry out a census of intangible cultural heritage to fundamentally find out the "family background" of the country's living heritage; second, to establish an intangible cultural heritage list system, so that each intangible cultural heritage project in China has its own "identity card"; third, to establish a cultural ecological protection zone to reserve a piece of "yerba buena" for the living inheritance of intangible cultural heritage; fourth, to expand the means of exhibition and display, so that intangible cultural heritage and its protection concept can be spread in all directions; fifth, to establish a database to let the dissemination of intangible cultural heritage enter "Fast lane"; sixth, launch a survey on the history of the inheritance of intangible cultural heritage projects, so that China's historical materials will become richer; seventh, integrate intangible cultural heritage into mainstream education, so that national cultural heritage can nourish the hearts of every child; eighth, formulate and apply the "Intangible Cultural Heritage Law of the People's Republic of China" to let the law "escort" the protection of China's intangible cultural heritage.
The principles of protection include the principle of "people-oriented", "principle of living protection", "principle of holistic protection", "principle of authenticity protection", "principle of uniqueness protection" and "principle of priority protection of endangered heritage", etc. The establishment and observance of these principles will have an important impact on the scientific protection of China's intangible cultural heritage.
In the final analysis, the doctrine of intangible cultural heritage is a practical science. The emphasis on practical practice and the study of the law of intangible cultural heritage inheritance are the basic characteristics of this discipline. The law of protection of intangible cultural heritage is determined by its inheritance law, and only by finding the inheritance law can we know what is scientific protection. If this problem is not solved, the study of intangible cultural heritage will lose its significance.
Of course, the above three major problems are only the "four beams and eight pillars" of the construction of intangible cultural heritage, and on this basis, many other contents will be derived. For example, as a new science, it is necessary to study the history of the protection of intangible cultural heritage at home and abroad. As a living heritage, intangible cultural heritage needs to be protected and passed on by people. This involves two aspects: "protection subject" and "inheritance subject". Among them, the former focuses on "composition", "basic functions" and "quality requirements", while the latter focuses on "definition", "basic functions" and "incentive mechanisms". In addition, as a valuable national cultural resource, intangible cultural heritage also involves the census and declaration, development and management of intangible cultural heritage.
5. The study of intangible cultural heritage has an independent and systematic theoretical framework
As a new science, intangible cultural heritage is not something that can be covered by a curriculum, it needs to be supported by a large and systematic academic system. Then, what courses need to be offered for intangible cultural heritage majors is a problem that must be deeply considered in the construction of its disciplines. The author believes that at least the following courses should be set up:
(1) Intangible cultural heritage
(2) The theory and practice of the movement for the protection of intangible cultural heritage in China and abroad
(3) Fieldwork and declaration of intangible cultural heritage
(4) Management of intangible cultural heritage
(5) Research on inheritors of intangible cultural heritage
(6) Theory and practice of cultural and ecological reserve construction
(7) Industrial development and commercialization of intangible cultural heritage
(8) Intangible cultural heritage and cultural and creative industries
(9) Historical records of the inheritance of intangible cultural heritage
(10) Establishment of intangible cultural heritage databases
(11) Theory and practice of intangible cultural heritage entering the campus
(12) Exhibition and display of intangible cultural heritage
(13) The theory and practice of the preparation of local teaching materials
(14) Research on the dissemination of intangible cultural heritage
In addition to the above basic theories, curriculum design for secondary disciplines should also be made according to the content of intangible cultural heritage. These second-level disciplines include:
(1) Folk arts and crafts
(2) Folk art
(3) Folk crafts
(4) Folk literature
(5) Folklore
(6) Traditional Chinese medicine
(7) Traditional drama
(viii) Traditional musicology
(9) Research on traditional folk rap
(10) Research on traditional folk dances
(11) Research on traditional sports competition
Unlike the courses offered by the first-level disciplines, the construction of the second-level disciplines has actually matured. Some disciplines have a history of more than 100 years, and those that are short are nearly 40 years, and the construction of basic teaching materials is not very difficult. Folk literature can even offer more detailed courses such as mythology, legendary storytelling, song and ballad studies, and epic studies. Of course, it is not that the previous teaching materials can be used as secondary teaching materials for intangible cultural heritage. Because in the past textbooks, there was no or little relevance to the content of intangible cultural heritage. This requires us to supplement the deficiencies on the basis of the existing teaching materials, so that they can become secondary discipline teaching materials that can truly meet the requirements of the academic theory of intangible cultural heritage.
▼ About the Author:
Yuan Li, researcher of China Academy of Arts, vice chairman of China Folk Writers Association, deputy director of the Expert Committee on Globally Important Agricultural Cultural Heritage of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, director of the Ethnic Cultural Heritage Professional Committee of the Chinese Ethnology Research Association, whose main research direction is intangible cultural heritage.
Gu Jun is the director and professor of the Department of History and Literature at the School of Applied Arts and Sciences of Beijing Union University, and the director of the Beijing Intangible Cultural Heritage Research Base, whose main research direction is cultural heritage.
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