Harvard’s William Kirby on China’s higher education system and his book ”Empires of Ideas”

This week on Sinica, Harvard’s eminent sinologist William Kirby joins Kaiser to talk about his book Empires of Ideas: Creating the Modern University from Germany to America to China, and to share his views on the state of higher education in China and the U.S，

03:12 – Wissenschaft and the German contribution to the creation of the modern research university

06:30 – The decreasing number of Chinese students willing to study in the U.S. and the defunding of American public universities

12:17 – What is the current state of higher education in China?

18:19 – Continuities between the old imperial civil service examination system and the current higher education system in China

23:08 – The state of Chinese universities before the Cultural Revolution

29:23 – How China revived higher education on the model of American universities in the early years of Reform and Opening

33:00 – Why does China maintain the gaokao examination despite its great unpopularity?

41:38 – Differences between the two leading universities in China: Peking University and Tsinghua University

44:00 – Institutional entrepreneurship at Tsinghua University

50:01 – The origins of Nanjing University and how it evolved over the years

57:21 – The importance of governance and management in the example of the University of Hong Kong

1:05:23 – What is the future of the joint programs between American and Chinese universities?

A complete transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com.

Recommendations:

Bill:

Made in Hong Kong: Transpacific Networks and a New History of Globalization by Peter E. Hamilton

The Dean of Shandong: The Confessions of a Minor Bureaucrat at a Chinese University by Daniel A. Bell

The Real World of College: What Higher Education Is and What It Can Be by Wendy Fischman and Howard Gardner

9,000 Years of Wine: A World History by Rod Phillips

Red Mandarin Dress: An Inspector Chen Novel by Qiu Xiaolong

Kaiser: Adventures of Horatio Hornblower by Entertainment Radio

Mentioned: Empires of Ideas: Creating the Modern University from Germany to America to China by William C. Kirby

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