In Memoriam: Former Fairbank Center Director, Professor Philip A. Kuhn (1933 - 2016)
February 15, 2016
We are saddened to report the news of the death of our friend and former Director Philip Kuhn.
We are saddened to report the news of the death of our friend and former Director Philip Kuhn.
Born on September 9, 1933, Philip Kuhn was the elder son of Ferdinand and Delia Kuhn, to whom he dedicated his first book,Rebellion and Its Enemies in Late Imperial China; Militarization and Social Structure, 1796-1864 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press). After attending Woodrow Wilson High School in Washington D.C., Philip received his A.B. from Harvard College. After receiving an M.A. from Georgetown University, he returned to Harvard University to complete a Ph.D. in History and East Asian Languages under the guidance of John K. Fairbank.
After teaching at the University of Chicago for fifteen years from 1963 to 1978, Philip returned to Harvard University as Francis Lee Higginson Professor of History and of East Asian Languages and Civilizations (later Emeritus) after John K. Fairbank’s retirement.
Philip served as Director of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies (then the East Asian Research Center) from 1980 to 1986. His tenure left a lasting impact on the Fairbank Center, notably with the establishment of the An Wang Postdoctoral Fellowship that continues to this day.
Philip leaves his own legacy with us in the form of his pioneering research on China, in particular Chinese social history and the “impact-response” school of Western scholarship on China. As Mirian E. Wells wrote in a review of Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990):
Soulstealers
is a
highly
readable
narrative
history
that
was
bound
to
interest
those outside academia...Kuhn had the reputation in the China field to merit reviews by luminaries such as Frederic Wakeman Jr. and Jonathan Spence. In part this is due to a
small
community
of
scholars—but much
of
it
is
probably
due
to
Kuhn’s stature. All
in all, he has given us
a vivid, identifiable past, and made not one case, but several, for interpreting this
small
slice of
history
in
a
much
more immediate way.
Philip’s contribution to Chinese studies continues to be realized through the groundbreaking work of his former students who continue to redefine the boundaries of the field and still play an active role in the intellectual life of the Fairbank Center.
Philip is survived by his two children, Anthony and Deborah W. Kuhn. We will keep the Fairbank Center community informed of plans for a memorial in his honor.
(Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies)
