Herrlee G. Creel

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Herrlee G. Creel
Born(1905-01-19)January 19, 1905
history
InstitutionsUniversity of Chicago
Chinese name
Hanyu Pinyin
Gù Lǐyǎ
Gwoyeu RomatzyhGuh Liiyea
Wade–GilesKu4 Li3-ya3

Herrlee Glessner Creel (January 19, 1905 – June 1, 1994) was an American

history, and was a professor of Chinese at the University of Chicago for nearly 40 years. On his retirement, Creel was praised by his colleagues as an innovative pioneer on early Chinese civilization and as one who could write both for specialists and for the interested general public with cogency, lucidity, and grace.[1]

Early years

Herrlee G. Creel was born on January 19, 1905, in

Harvard-Yenching Institute
(1931–1935) and the Rockefeller Foundation (1936, 1945 –1946). In 1936 he accepted a post at the University of Chicago, where he was an instructor in Chinese history and language until he was appointed assistant professor of early Chinese literature and institutions in 1937.

Creel was one of the founders of the university's Far Eastern studies program in the 1930s and had a major role in building its Far Eastern Library. He ordered some 5,000 books a year from dealers in China, then, in 1939, with support from the Rockefeller Foundation he returned to China, then in the grips of the Second Sino-Japanese War and the city of Beiping (Beijing) was occupied by the Japanese Army. He bought more than 75,000 volumes for the library, especially those dealing with the pre-modern period. [3]

Creel was promoted to the rank of associate professor in 1941 and full Professor in 1949. He served as a Lieutenant Colonel of

Second World War
. He remained as a professor until 1964, when he became the Martin A. Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor of Chinese History until 1974.

Societies and publishing

Creel was a member of the Committee on Chinese Studies of the American Council of Learned Societies, a member of its Committee on Far Eastern Studies, and the President of the

Western Zhou dynasty; What is Taoism? and Other Studies in Chinese Cultural History (University of Chicago Press, 1970) and Shen Pu-hai: A Chinese Political Philosophy of the Fourth Century B.C. (1974), a monograph on Shen Buhai
, an early Chinese specialist on administrative technique.

Style and legacy

Creel was especially known for Confucius: The Man and the Myth (1949), which argued that Confucius had been misunderstood because legend had obscured the facts of his life and his ideas. Creel held that Confucius was a reformer and an individualist, as well as a democratic and revolutionary teacher.[3]

From the start of his career in the 1930s, Creel was an outspoken proponent of the theory that

ideographic in nature.[4] He was opposed by sinologists Peter A. Boodberg and Paul Pelliot, who believed that phonetic principles played a large role in the early history of Chinese characters.[5] The debate has continued many decades later without either side being able to discredit the other.[6]

Creel died at his home in

Palos Park
, Illinois, after a long illness, on June 1, 1994, at the age of 89.

Selected works

Notes

  1. ^ Roy & Tsien (1978), p. Preface.
  2. ^ Roy (1996), p. 94.
  3. ^ a b Saxon (1994).
  4. ^ Creel (1936), p. 85.
  5. ^ Honey (2001), p. 297-298.
  6. ISBN 9780415626545.p. 190-191

References

External links

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