Homer H. Dubs | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Born | (1892-03-28)March 28, 1892 Deerfield, Illinois, United States | ||||||||||
| Died | August 16, 1969(1969-08-16) (aged 77) Oxford, England | ||||||||||
| Alma mater | University of Chicago(Ph.D.) Union Theological Seminary(B.D.) Columbia University(M.A.) Yale University(B.A.) | ||||||||||
| Scientific career | |||||||||||
| Fields | Chinese philosophy,religion,Han dynasty history | ||||||||||
| Institutions | Oxford University Marshall University | ||||||||||
| Notable students | David Hawkes | ||||||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 德效騫 | ||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 德效骞 | ||||||||||
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Homer Hasenpflug Dubs (March 28, 1892 – August 16, 1969) was an Americansinologist. Though best known for his translation of sections ofBan Gu'sBook of Han, he published on a wide range of topics in ancient Chinese history, astronomy and philosophy. Raised in China as the son of missionaries, he returned to the United States and earned a Ph.D. in philosophy (1925). He taught at University of Minnesota and Marshall College before undertaking theHan shutranslation project at the behest of the American Council of Learned Societies. Subsequently, Dubs taught atDuke University,Columbia University andHartford Seminary. In 1947, Dubs moved to England to take up theChair of Chinese atOxford University, which had been vacant since 1935. He retired in 1959 and remained in Oxford until his death in 1969.
Homer H. Dubs, like many early American sinologists, had his introduction to the subject as the child of missionary parents in China. Born inDeerfield, Illinois, he spent his childhood inHunan Province. He studied briefly atOberlin College and then graduated fromYale University (1914) with a major in philosophy. Subsequently, he earned anA.M. in philosophy atColumbia University and aB.D. atUnion Theological Seminary in the City of New York. He returned to China as a missionary, studying Chinese inNanjing before moving on to work in Hunan. Returning from China, Dubs attended theUniversity of Chicago and earned aPh.D. in philosophy in 1925 with a dissertation entitled "The Philosophy of Hsüntze: Ancient Confusionism [sic] as Developed in the Philosophy of Hsüntze", which was the basis for his later two-volume work on theXunzi. After receiving his degree, Dubs taught philosophy, first atUniversity of Minnesota (1925–27) and then at Marshall College (1927–34).[1]
Throughout his life, Dubs researched and published on a wide range of topics inChinese philosophy and history. In the mid-1930s he was commissioned by theAmerican Council of Learned Societies to undertake the work for which he would become best known, a translation ofBan Gu'sHan shu. During 1934-37, Dubs worked on the translation assiduously with three Chinese collaborators, Jen T'ai, C.H. Ts'ui, and P'an Lo-chi. They produced a copiously annotated three-volume translation of the "Annals" section of theHan shu (chapters 1-12) and the three chapters (99A,B&C) devoted toWang Mang, published under the titleHistory of the Former Han Dynasty (Baltimore, 1938–55). The first two volumes were awarded the coveted PrixStanislas Julien of theAcadémie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. Two companion volumes, including a prolegomena and a glossary were planned.[1]
Dubs' publications on China (he remained interested in philosophy throughout his life) were characterized by solid scholarship and an extraordinary breadth of interests. He did pioneering work on ancientChinese astronomy, in particular the observance of eclipses. But the breadth of his education and interests combined with a fertile mind to lead him into curious directions. One was his development of an idiosyncratic system ofromanization in which theChinese characters were replaced by a system of letters and numbers that indicated the pronunciation, tone and constituent elements of the original Chinese graph.[2] Thus,Qian Han shu (Wade GilesCh'ien Han shu) 前漢書 was rendered Ts'ien2R Han4SU-shu1WE. Although he represented his system as a variation on the widely usedWade Giles romanization, the field declined to adopt his "Wade-Dubs" system. Indeed, it was his insistence on using the system for the remaining volumes ofHistory of the Former Han Dynasty that prevented them from being published.
Another direction Dubs' interests took him was the pursuit ofcontacts between Han China and the Roman empire. He wrote several articles on the subject, culminating in the controversialA Roman City in Ancient China.[3] This work purported to show that aRoman legion that had been part of the army ofMarcus Licinius Crassus defeated at theBattle of Carrhae in 53 B.C. had settled inNorthwestern China. The defeated legion, Dubs speculated, had been relocated further east by the victoriousParthians, for whom they fought in a battle against the Han. Defeated again, they were settled at a place calledLiqian located in modernYongchang County,Jinchang,Gansu province. Although this story has been seized upon by enthusiastic Chinese of the area and non specialist Westerners, at least two eminent Chinese authorities have shown that the notion has serious shortcomings.[4]
Following publication of the first volume ofHistory of the Former Han Dynasty, Dubs taught atDuke University and its Divinity School,Columbia and theHartford Seminary. He also worked on the Chinese History Project of theInstitute of Pacific Relations withKarl August Wittfogel at Columbia University. Finally, in 1947 he was invited to join the faculty atOxford University, where he took up thechair of Chinese that had been occupied by eminent pioneer SinologistsJames Legge andWilliam Edward Soothill. He retired from Oxford in 1959 and subsequently spent the 1962-63 academic year at the University of Hawai'i and lecturing in Australia. He lived in Oxford until his death in 1969.[1]
As a person, Dubs was characterized by his generosity and his eccentricity. He was once described as a "Spinozan saint who had missed some of the bigger academic plums because he wouldn't press his pants" and offended some of the Oxford dons by parking his motorcycle in the hallway. Like some others at Oxford, he also dabbled a bit in the occult. But he was an erudite and respected scholar, and his former studentDavid Hawkes remembered "was always able to relate what he studied as an academic with what he had lived through as a younger man and to remind us by anecdote or example that the ancient texts he taught formed part of a continuum with the living present."[1][2][5]
At Professor Dubs' death, the material planned for the two companion volumes to theHistory of the Former Han Dynasty remained unpublished. A group of scholars reworked the manuscripts – said to total over 1000 pages – to replace theromanization and render it acceptable to an academic press. Responsibility for it was taken over by the Han Dynasty History Project at theUniversity of Washington, where Wittfogel had gone after leaving Columbia. Unfortunately, at the death of the Han Project's director,Jack Dull, the manuscript still had not been published, and with the end of the project, the materials were scattered and some of them lost. Recently, however, the [Glossary] materials have been recovered and are gradually being made available on-line, as have been the three volumes ofHistory of the Former Han Dynasty. Together with the already published materials, they constitute a nearly complete translation or paraphrase of the entireHan shu.
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