Wm Theodore de Bary

William Theodore "Ted" de Bary (born August 9, 1919),^[1] is an American sinologist and East Asian literature scholar who serves as John Mitchell Mason Professor of the University and Provost Emeritus at Columbia University.

De Bary graduated from Columbia College in 1941, where he was a student in the first year of Columbia's famed Literature Humanities course. He then briefly took up graduate studies at Harvard University before the US entered the Second World War. De Bary left the academy to serve in American military intelligence in the Pacific Theatre. Upon his return, he resumed his studies at Columbia, where he earned his MA in 1948 and PhD in 1953.

He has edited numerous books of original source material relating to East Asian (primarily Japanese and Chinese) literature, history, and culture, as well as making the case, in his book Nobility and Civility, for the universality of Asian values. He is recognized as essentially creating the field of Neo-Confucian studies.

Other Activity

De Bary was active in faculty intervention during the Columbia University protests of 1968 and served as the university's provost from 1971 to 1978. He has attempted to reshape the Core Curriculum of Columbia College to include Great Books and classes devoted to non-Western civilizations. De Bary is additionally famous for rarely missing a Columbia Lions football game since he began teaching at the university in 1953. A recognized educator, he won Columbia's Great Teacher Award in 1969, its Lionel Trilling Book Award in 1983 and its Mark Van Doren Award for Great Teaching in 1987. In 2010 he received the Philolexian Award for Distinguished Literary Achievement.

Now the director of the Heyman Center for the Humanities and still teaching, de Bary lives in Rockland County, New York.

Prizes and Honours

• Watumull Prize of the American Historical Association in 1958
• Fishburn Prize of Educational Press Association in 1964
• Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1974
• Edwin O. Reischauer Lectures 1986
• Elected to the American Philosophical Association, 1999
• Elevated to the Order of the Rising Sun (Third Class),
• Philolexian Award for Distinguished Literary Achievement, 2010
• National Humanities Medal, 2013 ^[2]
• Tang Prize in Sinology, 2016 ^[3]

Honorary degrees

• St. Lawrence University, D.Litt, 1968
• Loyola University of Chicago, LHD, 1970
• Columbia University. D. Litt, 1994

Major works

Original Works

• The Great Civilized Conversation: Education for a World Community (CUP, 2013)
• Self and Society in Ming Thought (ACLS Humanities E-Book, 2011)
• Living Legacies at Columbia (CUP, 2006)
• Nobility and Civility : Asian Ideals of Leadership and the Common Good, (Harvard UP, 2004)
• Asian Values and Human Rights : A Confucian Communitarian Perspective. Harvard UP (2000)
• Learning for One's Self : Essays on the Individual in Neo-Confucian Thought (CUP, 1991)
• The Trouble with Confucianism, (Harvard UP, 1991)
• Eastern canons: Approaches to the Asian Classics (CUP, 1990)
• Message of the mind in Neo-Confucianism (CUP, 1989)
• Neo-Confucian Education : the Formative Stage (University of California Press, 1989)
• East Asian Civilizations : a Dialogue in Five Stages, (Harvard UP, 1988)
• The Rise of Neo-Confucianism in Korea (1985)
• The Liberal Tradition in China (Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, 1983)
• Yüan thought : Chinese Thought and Religion under the Mongols (CUP, 1982)
• Neo-Confucian Orthodoxy and the Learning of the Mind-And-Heart (CUP, 1981)
• Principle and Practicality : Essays in Neo-Confucianism and Practical Learning (CUP, 1979)
• Unfolding of Neo-Confucianism (CUP, 1975)
• Self and Society in Ming Thought (CUP, 1970)
• The Buddhist Tradition in India, China and Japan (Random House, 1969)
• Approaches to Asian Civilizations (CUP, 1964)
• Guide to Oriental Classics (CUP, 1964)

end ed. 1975. 3rd ed. 1988

Original translations

• Mahābhārata (1998)
• Waiting for the Dawn : a Plan for the Prince (1993)
• Five women who loved to love (Tuttle, 1956)

Edited volumes

• Finding Wisdom in East Asian Classics (CUP, 2011)
• Sources of East Asian Tradition. 2 vols [vol. 1 published subtitled Premodern Asia; vol 2 subtitled The modern Period (CUP, 2008)
• Sources of Korean Tradition: Volume 1 (Harvard UP, 1997)

2nd ed. 2001

• Confucianism and Human Rights (CUP, 1998) with Tu Weiming
• Sources of Japanese Tradition (1958), with Ryūsaku Tsunoda and Donald Keene

2nd ed published as earliest times to 1600 (2001) with Donald Keene, George Tanabe, Paul Varley vol 2 published as 1600 to 2000 with Carol Gluck and Arthur Tiedemann (2005)

• Sources of Chinese Tradition: Volume 1 (CUP, 1960)

expanded 2 vols ed. Harvard UP, 1999 and 2000

• Approaches to the Oriental Classics: Asian Literature and Thought in General Education (1958/9)
• Sources of Indian Tradition, 2 vols (1957 and 1964), with Stephen N. Hay and I. H. Qureshi

2nd ed. 1988

External links

• Your Columbians: William Theodore de Bary