Nathan Sivin (11 May 1931 – 24 June 2022), also known asXiwen (Chinese:席文), was an Americansinologist,historian,essayist, educator, and writer. He taught first atMassachusetts Institute of Technology, then at theUniversity of Pennsylvania until his retirement in 2006.[1]
The major areas of study and focus in Nathan Sivin's career and publications werehistory of science and technology in China,medicine in traditional China,Chinese philosophy, andChinese religious beliefs. He was a key player in the development of their scholarly study in the West. He collaborated with prominent scholars, such asG.E.R. Lloyd,A.C. Graham andJoseph Needham, and nurtured younger ones.
His wife was the artist Carole Delmore Sivin, who died in 2020. For many years they lived inChestnut Hill, Pennsylvania.[2]
In 1977 he was elected to theAmerican Academy of Arts & Sciences.[3] He was president of the Philadelphia literary society,Franklin Inn Club, 1996–1998.
From 1954 until 1956, Sivin was enrolled in an 18-month language program forChinese at theU.S. Army Language School. He then went on to receive hisBachelor of Science degree in humanities with a chemistry minor at theMassachusetts Institute of Technology in 1958. He received hisA.M. in thehistory of science atHarvard University in 1960, and his Ph.D. in the history of science at Harvard University in 1966. He received an honorary M.A. at the University of Pennsylvania.[4]
In 1966, at MIT, Nathan Sivin served as an assistant professor of humanities, associate professor in 1969, and professor from 1972 until 1977, where he then moved to the University of Pennsylvania as a professor ofChinese culture andhistory of science.
Sivin studied abroad on many occasions. From October 1961 to August 1962 he studied Chinese language and philosophy inTaipei, Taiwan. From August 1962 to March 1963 he studied the history of Chinesealchemy in Singapore and provided guest lectures there. From the 1960s until the 1980s he was an avid visitor to Kyoto, Japan, where he acted as a visiting professor, studied at the Research Institute of Humanistic Studies, and studiedChinese astronomy, alchemy, and medicine. From 1974 to 2000 he made numerous trips toCambridge in order to study Chinese astronomy, visitingGonville and Caius College, theNeedham Research Institute, and St. John's College in the process. From the late 1970s until the late 1990s he traveled several times to the People's Republic of China. In September 1979 he lectured in seminars at theÉcole Pratique des Hautes Etudes of Paris, France, and at the Sinologisches Seminar at theUniversity of Würzburg in Germany in 1981. Sivin also spoke several foreign languages, includingMandarin, Japanese, German, andFrench.
Along with various responsibilities at the University of Pennsylvania, throughout his career Sivin was also an elective member of numeroussocieties and committees. This included theAmerican Society for the Study of Religion, thePhilomathean Society, theAcadémie Internationale d'Histoire des Sciences, theT'ang Studies Society, and many others.
In 2010, his volumeGranting the Seasons: The Chinese Astronomical Reform of 1280 was the first recipient of the Osterbrock Book Prize, awarded by theAmerican Astronomical Society. "I am not a historian of astronomy," he told the committee, "but a generalist who has investigated all of the Chinese sciences and every period of Chinese history." He began work on the project in the 1970s, and was impressed that the large scale and lavish funding from the thirteenth century Chinese government were remarkable compared to the limited support for mathematical astronomy in Europe before modern times.[5]
Along with numerous book publications, articles, chapters, and edited volumes, Sivin gave over 200 lectures throughout Europe, Asia, Australia, and North America.
In his last years he was working on several projects, including a biography on theSong dynastypolymath scientistShen Kuo and a translation into English of aYuan dynasty calendrical treatise published in 1279 AD, theSeason-Granting (a hallmark of Chinese mathematical astronomy).
In a statistical overview derived from writings by and about Nathan Sivin,OCLC/WorldCat encompasses roughly 50 works in 80+ publications in 7 languages and 4,000+ library holdings.[6]
