Professor Van Norden’s Classical Chinese for Everyone

Today, Rob is off doing research in China, so Lee interviews Professor Van Norden. Professor Van Norden is a philosophy professor at Vassar, and he works on early Chinese philosophical texts.

He recently published a textbook for learning Classical Chinese (文言文). The book, called Classical Chinese for Everyone, is the outgrowth of Professor Van Norden’s teaching, and he seeks to make Classical Chinese more approachable than do other textbooks on the language. Professor Van Norden and Lee discuss his book and wider issues related to early Chinese texts.