Patrick Hanan

Patrick Dewes Hanan (January 4, 1927 - April 26, 2014) was a New Zealand born academic who was the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Chinese Literature at Harvard University. A sinologist, he was a historian of Chinese literature, especially pre-twentieth century vernacular fiction.^[1]

Career

Hanan was born in Morrinsville, New Zealand and raised on a farm in the Waikato where his father retired from a career in dentistry. Hanan studied English at Auckland University before going to England, where he enrolled to study Chinese at the School of Oriental and African Studies at University of London, taking his undergraduate degree in 1953 and beginning his teaching career there. He spent the academic year 1957-58 in Beijing. Soon after completing his doctoral work and receiving his doctoral degree in 1961, he was recruited to teach on a temporary basis at Stanford University in 1961, then a regular position there in 1963. In 1968, he moved to Harvard, where he taught until his retirement at age 70 in 1997. He was chair of the department of East Asian Languages and Director of the Harvard-Yenching Library, among other services.^[1]

Reactions to his work

A state-of-the-field article written by Robert Hegel, of Washington University in 1994 grouped Hanan with scholars who combine Eastern and Western critical approaches, both close reading of texts typical of Western schools and intense scrutiny of Chinese pingdian, or commentator/ editors. Hanan's first book-length monograph, The Chinese Short Story. Studies in Dating, Authorship, and Composition (1973) was a "pioneering effort to utilize stylistic analysis to group huaben stories of Yuan and Ming periods that exhibit similar characteristics." Hanan was careful to accommodate evidence from more conventional analysis, the reviewer continued, with the result that "his classification scheme is extremely useful in general despite the reservations some have concerning specific details." ^[2] David Roy, University of Chicago, wrote of Hanan's "amazing erudition and fecundity ... one of those rare scholars of whom it may be said that his work has permanently altered the landscape of the field." ^[3] Robert Hegel reviewed Hanan's collection of essays, Chinese Fiction of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, in the sinologolical journal T'oung Pao, and said "Any scholarly writing by Patrick Hanan ... is to be welcomed; regardless of topic, it is sure to be worth our careful consideration. This essay collection marks yet another direction taken in his four-decade long career of distinguished publications, and it is as important as his previous writings.^[4]

Major publications

• "The Development of Fiction and Drama," in Raymond Dawson, (ed.), The Legacy of China (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964). pp. 115–143.
• The Chinese Short Story: Studies in Dating, Authorship, and Composition. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series, 1973). ISBN 0674125258.
• The Chinese Vernacular Story. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Harvard East Asian Series, 1981). ISBN 0674125657.
• The Invention of Li Yu. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988). ISBN 0674464257. Joseph Levenson Book Prize 1990.
• tr. Lin Fu and Jianren Wu. The Sea of Regret: Two Turn-of-the-Century Chinese Romantic Novels. (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1995). ISBN 0824816668.
• "The Missionary Novels of Nineteenth-Century China," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 60.2 (2000): 413-443.
• ed., Treasures of the Yenching: Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the Harvard-Yenching Library. (Cambridge, MA; Hong Kong: Harvard-Yenching Library; Distributed by the Chinese University Press, Harvard-Yenching Library Studies No. 1, 2003). ISBN 9629961024 Google.
• with Judith T. Zeitlin, Lydia He Liu and Ellen Widmer. Writing and Materiality in China: Essays in Honor of Patrick Hanan. (Cambridge, MA: Published by Harvard University Asia Center for Harvard-Yenching Institute: distributed by Harvard University Press, Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series ; 58, 2003). ISBN 0674010981.
• Chinese Fiction of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries : Essays. (New York: Columbia University Press, Masters of Chinese Studies, 2004). ISBN 0231133243. Google Book
• Falling in Love: Stories from Ming China. (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2006). ISBN 0824829956.

References

1. Obituary Obituary Memorial.com
2. Hegel, Robert E. (1994), "Traditional Chinese Fiction--the State of the Field", The Journal of Asian Studies 53, Association for Asian Studies, p. 407
3. Journal of Asian Studies 40.4 (August 1981): 764-65
4. Robert Hegel "Review," Bulletin of the Academia Sinica 24

External links

• Remembering Professor Patrick Hanan (1927-2014).
• A Celebration of the Life and Career of Patrick Hanan, 1927-2014.
• Patrick Hanan WorldCat Page.
• Patrick Hanan Google Scholar