Interview with Li Chen (Associate Professor of History, University of Toronto).
After graduating from the Chinese Department of the School of International Relations in 1996, Song Nianshen worked in journalism for many years, and went to the London School of Economics in 2006 to obtain a master's degree, and the following year entered the University of Chicago to pursue a doctorate in history. After graduating in 2013, he did postdoctoral work at Vassar College, joined the Department of History at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 2016, and was promoted to associate professor in 2020. His major academic works include The Making Borders in Modern East Asia: The Tumen River Demarcation, published in English by Cambridge University Press in 2018, and discovering East Asia Chinese. Some of his academic articles have been published in top international academic journals, including the American Historical Review and the Journal of Asian Studies. From his career and academic career trajectory, we can see why a Mesozoic scholar decided to return to school after years of work to "recharge" his knowledge and successfully develop a career path he liked in academia. From his academic research results, readers can also observe that the practice of advocating interdisciplinary training and attaching great importance to academic theory and method innovation in the field of humanities and social sciences in European and American research universities is very important for the growth of young scholars and the continuous improvement of academic standards. His first English monograph, through the study of border disputes between neighboring countries in the Tumen River Basin in northeast Asia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, analyzed how the people and land in the frontier areas, as well as related discourses and practices, influenced the process of modern state sovereignty, territory and nation-building in the same period from the perspective of transnational history. The research findings and perspectives of the book are of great value to the research of related fields.
This article is an interview with Song Nianshen by Chen Li, an associate professor of history at the University of Toronto, in July 2020. The first part of the interview details his experience of studying in the United Kingdom and the United States and his academic training experience of studying for a doctorate in Chinese history in Chicago; the second part mainly discusses his historical research works and their academic methods and theoretical contributions. Professor Song's academic research and the study abroad experience and academic training mentioned in the next part naturally have a lot to do with each other, but we can also experience some common characteristics and requirements of the academic path and the academic world from individual cases. The research methods and theories of the history of modern and contemporary international relations and the history of frontier areas in Northeast Asia, which are mostly involved in the interviews, are also of great significance for more and more scholars who have tried to combine modern Chinese history with transnational history and global history in recent years. This article is the first part of the interview.
Song Nianshen's Chinese book "Discovering East Asia"
I've read you share your experience of going on an academic path before, unlike a lot of people who go from undergraduate to ph.D. and then teach and write at school (we seem to have graduated in the same year). Can you elaborate on your experience before your PhD?
Song Nianshen: Before my master's degree, I worked as a newspaper editor for many years, mainly responsible for international commentary. My job is to invite international relations scholars to discuss topics such as foreign policy and the international situation, and occasionally conduct interviews. One of the most profound experiences that influenced my later academic work was to interview the Border between China and North Korea in the northeast in 2004. It was my first trip to the northeast and my first on-the-ground contact with China's borders, and I was very impressed and had a lot of problems. When I went to london for a master's degree, the title of my thesis came from the dispute over the historical heritage of Goguryeo that I learned about in this interview. This led to the title of my doctoral dissertation on borders and the history of immigration, which eventually became my first scholarly book. When I think about it now, my experience as an editor and journalist was very helpful to my studies. In addition to the emphasis on fieldwork, I am also more sensitive to deadlines - being a newspaper is the most taboo to drag out the manuscript. So when I write my thesis, for example, I stipulate that if I want to complete a chapter this month, I must complete it.
It's important to be able to complete a writing plan in a timely manner, but it's now a big challenge for academics. Everyday life is easily affected by other chores, and I often can't catch up with deadlines now. I would like to ask you if you have any experience or experience of English academic writing that you can share?
Song Nianshen: I am not good at English writing, and I like to use a lot of clauses at the beginning, as if this is like an academic flavor. Later, I was criticized by the teacher, so I took an academic writing class, and I didn't take it twice. After writing more, I understand that English, like Chinese, the most intelligent writing is to use concise and straightforward language to express complex ideas, and to complete rich content with short sentences. For friends who are new to English writing, my advice is that whoever you like in writing style, first learn and imitate his/her writing.
I also agree that imitation is an important part of the process of learning languages, and learning English is a difficult process. I remember that you studied Chinese department as an undergraduate, then worked in the media, and then went back to do English academics, and the difficulties that need to be overcome in the middle language may be more than me, because I am an English major in undergraduate, but learning to write in English also requires a lot of effort. So what prompted you to move from the media industry to academic research?
Song Nianshen: First of all, the objective environment for media work. There are also doubts about the professionalism of journalism, especially after traveling to the Gulf to cover the Iraq War and witnessing how the British and American media operate on issues. While I was thinking about my career path, I was given the opportunity to study in the UK. I didn't want to study journalism, because I was doing political commentary, so I chose to study political science and went to the London School of Economics and Political Science. Later, the master's thesis actually got a rare "distinction", which gave me a lot of confidence, and I felt that I might still have the potential to further study, so I decided to change careers. When I was writing my thesis, my favorite scholars were Prasenjit Duara and Bruce Cumings, both of whom happened to be in the history department of the University of Chicago, and I wrote a very abrupt email to Duzanchi, saying that I would like to study with him, but I was worried that I had never been trained in history. Unexpectedly, he replied with great encouragement. So I went to Chiba University and transferred to the history major.
What is the overall impression of the PhD in history at the University of Chicago? What is the difference with the London School of Economics and Political Science?
Song Nianshen: The doctoral training time in the UK is short, doctoral students do not need to attend classes, and the main task is to write doctoral dissertations. If your thesis topic is ready and you can write it as soon as you come, then go to the UK and read it quickly. However, there are fewer scholarship opportunities in the UK. At the University of Chicago, new Ph.D. students must take classes, choose a seminar that spans two semesters, and complete two long papers for the first two years to be eligible for the topic. For someone like me, who has no historical background, the first two years of training are still very important. For example, if I want to study China, I should naturally take a course in Chinese history, but unfortunately, the history department of Zhida University was not opened in those two years. But the fact that I studied Japanese history with James Ketelaar in the first year and Korean history with Bruce Cummings the following year not only forced me to fill in the gaps in my knowledge, but also completely changed my perspective on East Asian history—that is, not only from a single national perspective, but also from a regional, even global perspective. Another special feature of the Department of History at Chicago is that it belongs to the Faculty of Social Sciences rather than the Faculty of Humanities. At the course selection stage, the Department of History requires doctoral students to choose enough courses for non-history majors to emphasize interdisciplinary learning. So it's easy for you to communicate and play with teachers and classmates from other departments. Chikuchi University also has a good tradition of sponsoring many workshops organized by students, where students share research results and invite guests to give lectures. The themes of many workshops reflect the cross-regional and interdisciplinary characteristics. I also served as a coordinator for the East Asia Trans-Regional Histories workshop.
I was also invited to give a presentation at a workshop like the Department of History at Chicago University, but now I know that this is a tradition of chikuma university doctoral students organizing workshops. This is very useful, inviting scholars who are interested in themselves, and communicating with scholars very early, which is of great help to the research of doctoral students.
Song Nianshen: The teachers of the History Department of Zhida University have a characteristic: they really don't care about students, research and daily life, at least I was like that at that time. When I was a PhD student, I was more in a hurry, and I graduated in six years. At that time, it was very common for those who had not graduated for more than ten years, and there were exaggerations that had not graduated for twenty years. In recent years, there has been a rule on the number of years for graduation, which seems to be eight years. The teacher ignores you, probably because he thinks that since you can come here, you should be an idea, independent scholar, especially after becoming a Doctoral Candidate (All-but-Dissertation). I met with the main supervisor, Cummings, to talk about papers, and on average once or twice a year, for ten or twenty minutes each time. As soon as I went to Chicago, Duzanchi was dug up by the Singapore State for several years, and then simply retired from Chicago. Although he is still on my Doctoral Dissertation Committee, we can only meet at the annual meeting of the Asian Society for ten to fifteen minutes. The good aspect of this "disregard" is that students have full autonomy. But there are also bad aspects, such as when looking for a job, our career competitiveness is relatively low.
Therefore, this contrasts greatly with the students supported by the teacher, from having the teacher staring and supporting at every step, to relying on themselves at every step. It feels like a domestic high school student to a university, high school students have a teacher staring at every class, many people from high school to college, no one stares and does not know what to do. Therefore, domestic students go to the United States for graduate school, before going abroad, try to learn how to plan their time, how to use time effectively, and improve their English ability, and explore their own academic methods. The foreign doctoral training mode is roughly divided into two types, one is the relaxed research environment, including topic selection, research methods, and thesis topic change, and the graduation time limit is also more relaxed than that in China. In the first five or six years, the academic and resource support provided by the school was in place, and the teachers did not teach by hand, and students had to develop independent problem-solving, effective time planning, and figuring out how to write papers on their own.
Song Nianshen: Many phDs choose to drop out of school in the middle of the way, and those who do not graduate late, my observation is that there are two situations, one may be poorly prepared; the other is extremely smart, active and profound thinking, and a little pursuit of perfection. Unlike me, limit yourself to having to complete a certain task within a certain deadline. Therefore, in the case that the teacher does not supervise hard and the school does not have special restrictions, many intelligent students will also spend a long time.
Academics, self-discipline is very critical, whether it is to study for a doctorate or continue to do research in academia after graduation. You mentioned earlier how to revise your PhD thesis and how to complete your writing before the deadline you set. After getting the review opinions, change the paper in a limited time, such as within a year or half a year, many people can not change it will affect the future work. Doing academics is not just about applying for a Ph.D., and then you face a lot of self-choice, whether to go on or not. This has a lot to do with everyone's IQ, academic interests, potential and everyone's self-management.
Song Nianshen: In fact, as far as my personal experience is concerned, in the United States, if you take academia as a profession, you don't need to be extremely intelligent, and the chinese people's assets may be easier to adapt. Because the Chinese people will be willing to follow the rules of school and academic survival. My intellect is very mediocre, this is true, there are many very intelligent people, perhaps not very suitable for this set of norms.
Congratulations on your English monograph Making Borders in Modern East Asia: The Tumen River Demarcation, 1881-1919 published by Cambridge University Press in 2018. This book is adapted from your Doctoral Dissertation at the University of Chicago, can you share the process and experience of adapting your dissertation into a book?
Song Nianshen: I have a suggestion for doctoral students who are writing a thesis: when writing a thesis, try to write in the direction of the manuscript. Don't always think that my dissertation is only for the Doctoral Committee or the supervisor, and I have a larger readership in mind. I've had the pleasure of attending several workshops where academic publishing was discussed, and I've read some guided books written by editors of academic publishing houses (like William Germano's From Dissertation to Book). Everyone will tell you some of the most basic revision requirements: don't make editors think that your manuscript is still the appearance of your doctoral dissertation, don't have too long and specialized theoretical and literature reviews, and make the narrative as interesting as possible so that more people can intervene in your issues. This is not to say that you want to write a popular novel, but to let people in non-professional fields also be inspired by your book. In fact, in the final analysis, it is necessary to be clear that the target audience of the book and the audience of the doctoral dissertation are different.
When I write my thesis, I deal with the structure of the chapter according to the idea of writing a book. Therefore, when changing the manuscript, I don't feel particularly laborious. My main content has not changed much, adding some new content, new materials, but not much increase or decrease. The overall structure of the paper has not changed significantly, and it takes relatively little time to adapt it into a book.
The initial readers of the doctoral dissertation are the defense committee, usually four or five teachers, all of whom are experts in the field of dissertation, but the readers of academic monographs are aimed at a wider audience, and not everyone is an expert on the topic. By writing a phD thesis in the form of a manuscript, how to balance the different requirements and expectations of experts and ordinary readers?
Song Nianshen: This can only be based on experience. Maybe I have a slight advantage, that is, I have been a newspaper editor for many years, and the articles I invite scholars to scholars must in most cases be changed to words that can face ordinary readers. So it's not hard for me to understand what kind of narrative and style an editor facing a particular readership would like to see. When I saw senior editor William Germano teach you how to adapt your PhD dissertation, he said you have to think that the book is for more people to read, and I immediately understood what he was saying, because that's how I changed the articles of scholars. However, it is difficult to generalize on how to change it, and it is necessary to slowly explore on your own.
From phD thesis rewritten to book, did it take you almost a year?
Song Nianshen: Not only. Although I submitted my paper earlier, there was another round of revisions after the review comments came back. So my other experience is that when you first submit a manuscript, don't wait until you think it's perfect — there's no end to perfection, and you can write that you're 80% satisfied. Usually after receiving the comments of the reviewers, there will be some thought, and there will be a round of major repairs. If you can meet a good reviewer, they will provide very good advice, and they should improve the last 20% of the manuscript according to their opinions. Of course, when I say that I am 80% satisfied, I do not mean that I will directly submit my doctoral dissertation to the editor and sit and wait for someone to give you advice. If you submit a doctoral dissertation, you will be rejected, at least change it to the appearance of a manuscript. After I got the review opinion, I spent another year and a half, continued to run the field to collect information, and finally revised the manuscript.
My doctoral dissertation was changed four or five years before it was sent to the publisher, and the analytical framework of the book was determined relatively late. The fact that you can rewrite your phD thesis into a manuscript so quickly should have a lot to do with your previous preparations, such as writing a dissertation in a book.
(This article was compiled with the assistance of Zhao Shuying, a master's student in the History Department of Peking University, and Luo Qingqing, an undergraduate student in the Department of Public Relations at the Communication University of China.) ）
Editor-in-Charge: Yu Shujuan
Proofreader: Liu Wei