EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW • 人物專訪 45 2024 UMAGAZINE 30 • 澳大新語 and close connections to Japan. This thinker was Zhang Taiyan (1869–1936) from China, who is often remembered alongside Sun Yat-sen and Huang Xing as one of the ‘Three Revolutionaries’ in the late Qing Dynasty. Prof Lin notes that Zhang Taiyan had a profound understanding of the power of ‘wen’. During the revolutionary era in the late Qing Dynasty, while Sun Yat-sen led the strategic vision of the Tongmenghui alliance, Zhang advanced the anti-Qing revolution and the establishment of the Republic of China through his ideas and writings. He also called for solidarity among revolutionaries across Asia to liberate those oppressed by imperialism and authoritarianism. These ideals had a significant impact on Third World discourses, particularly on the narrative of ‘small nations’ resisting dominant powers. In 2004, Prof Lin completed his doctoral studies at UTokyo and was soon appointed as an assistant professor in the university’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, later rising to the rank of Full Professor. He also taught at the City University of Hong Kong for two periods due to family reasons. Over the past two decades, Prof Lin has been dedicated to his research on Zhang Taiyan and the concept of revolution through ‘wen’—a form of revolution distinct from narrowly-defined violent movements. His work has made a significant impact in the field. In 2004, his book The Conflict of Wen in Japanese Modernity was included on the annual booklist at Beijing’s All Sages Bookstore. The book drew significant attention because it reintroduced ‘wen’—an idea largely forgotten over time—as a theoretical concept and engaged it in dialogue with Western thought. This work was a by-product of his doctoral dissertation. Prof Lin’s research has also garnered considerable interest in Japan, similarly because it has revived ‘wen’ as an intellectual and theoretical concept long overlooked. In 2009, he published his Japanese-language book, Rhetoric and Thought: Zhang Taiyan and His Theory. His 2018 Chinese-language work, Revolution by Means of Culture: The Late Qing Revolution and Zhang Taiyan from 1900 to 1911, focuses on Zhang Taiyan’s ideas, examining how the late Qing revolution employed ‘wen’ as a transformative tool. This interpretation offers a unique perspective on late Qing revolutionary and expressions of “wen”, a far broader idea than the “literature” concept in English, which focuses mainly on novels,’ Prof Lin explains. ‘From a young age, I resisted rigid disciplinary boundaries, and this perspective directly influenced my early academic path and subsequent development.’ Over time, Prof Lin observed that ‘wen’ is an intricate concept in the Chinese tradition, encompassing politics, morality, and even cosmic order, which makes it challenging to define. In diplomacy, for example, ‘wen’ often manifests through Confucian language, emphasising moral governance and civil rule, presented as a China-centred model of security balance. The Chinese tributary rituals and the order they establish exemplify this system. However, when this order broke down, the problem of war, or ‘wu’ (武, meaning military force), emerged. In view of this, Prof Lin, in recent years, has expanded his research to examine the East Asian tributary system of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, exploring the conflicts that arose as the order of ‘wen’ began to disintegrate. Prof Lin believes that scholars answer questions rather than studying a specific academic discipline.. Therefore, scholars should not confine themselves to strict disciplinary boundaries. ‘We are guided by questions as we explore a field, so we should be open to seeking answers from other disciplines when necessary. For example, while researching the relationship between East Asian tributary rituals and “wen”, I’ve found that traditional historical studies alone could not fully address my questions. I needed to draw on methods and theories from social sciences, including anthropology, religious studies on rituals, and sociology, to arrive at more convincing answers.’ Two Decades Devoted to Zhang Taiyan’s Thought While studying and working at UTokyo, Prof Lin began exploring the relationship between ‘wen’ and the ideas of prominent European thinkers influential in Japan at that time, including German hermeneutic philosophers and French intellectuals such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Derrida. This inquiry offered him a fresh perspective for reimagining ‘wen’. Moreover, Prof Lin believes that there was a thinker in East Asia who rivalled these Western figures intellectually, but with a more politically remarkable background
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