Xing Wen, or Wen Xing (; born 1965) is a Chinese scholar and researcher in Chinese art, archaeology, and classical Chinese studies. He is Robert 1932 and Barbara Black Professor in Asian Studies, Emeritus, and Professor of Asian Societies, Cultures, and Languages, Emeritus at Dartmouth College.
Xing Wen was born in 1965. He attended the Nanjing College of Food Economy, current Nanjing University of Finance and Economics as an undergraduate student, graduating in 1986 with a B.A. in Economics, after which he taught planning and statistics courses at the college for a few years. He then went to Nanjing Normal University for graduate study and obtained his M.A. in Chinese art history in 1992. He did his Ph.D. work on the Mawangdui silk manuscripts both at the Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences under the guidance of Professor Li Xueqin æÂÂå¸å¤ and in the Anthropology Department at Harvard University as a post-doctoral student of Professor Kwang-chih Chang å¼µå Âç´. He received his Ph.D. in history from Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 1996 with a dissertation on the silk manuscript version of the Zhouyi å¨æÂÂ, i.e., I Ching. This dissertation was awarded the 1st China National Award for Outstanding Doctoral Dissertations in 1999.
Xing was Robert 1932 and Barbara Black Professor in Asian Studies at Dartmouth College and Distinguished Professor of Chinese Department and Philosophy and History Research Institute at Southwest Jiaotong University. He was Director of the Center for Research on Bamboo and Silk Manuscripts in the School of Archaeology and Museology at Peking University during 2000âÂÂ2002, chaired the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Languages and Literatures at Dartmouth College in 2014, held the directorship of The Dartmouth Institute for Calligraphy and Manuscript Culture in China since 2014, and served as Associate Dean for Disciplinary Development, Academic Research, and Internationalization of the School of Humanities at Southwest Jiaotong University from 2017 to 2020.
Xing was involved in several controversies regarding the authenticity of some purchased bamboo-slip manuscripts collected by top universities in China.
In 2012, Xing published a series of articles in China's foremost national newspaper Guangming Daily to argue that the so-called Warring States period (475-221 B.C.) bamboo slips collected by Zhejiang University were fake. Professor Cao Jingyan æ¹é¦ç of Zhejiang University argued that Xing's articles were misleading since he never touched any real bamboo slips. Liu Shaogang Ã¥ÂÂç´¹åÂÂ, research fellow of the Chinese Academy of Cultural Heritage, also challenged Xing's approach of calligraphic examination.
In 2016, Xing published several articles in Guangming Daily again to challenge the authenticity of the bamboo-slip version of the Laozi, i.e., the Tao Te Ching, collected by Peking University. Professor Alan Chan of The Chinese University of Hong Kong included Xing's argument in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Chinese professors Li Kai æÂÂé and Yao Xiaoou å§Âå°Âé· and Western scholars Christopher Foster and Thies Staack all challenged Xing's argument from various perspectives.
Xing is known for his initiative and expertise in Mathematical Art History æ¸çÂÂç¾Âè¡Âå² and Mathematical Humanities æ¸çÂÂ人æÂÂå¸. In 1999, he formally proposed to establish a new field of study, "The Study of Bamboo-slip and Silk Manuscripts" ä¸ÂÃ¥ÂÂç°¡å¸Âå¸, at a Wuhan University international conference. In recent years, he proposed several new interdisciplinary fields, such as the Chinese Mathematical Philosophy ä¸ÂÃ¥ÂÂæ¸çÂÂå²å¸ (2017), the Authentication Studies of Excavated Manuscripts ç°¡å¸Â辨å½å¸ (2018), Cognitive Manuscriptology èªÂçÂ¥æÂÂ稿å¸ (2018), Cognitive Bamboo-and-Silk Manuscriptology èªÂç¥簡å¸Âå¸ (2018), Cognitive Paleography èªÂçÂ¥å¤æÂÂÃ¥ÂÂå¸ (2019), and Cognitive Oracle-bone Studies èªÂçÂ¥ç²骨å¸ (2019). His new book on mathematical art history is also informed by artificial intelligence and data science.