Columbia University: New Chinese studies archival collections

 

The Wu Dizhou papers document the professional and personal life of Wu Dizhou, a journalist, arts administrator, cultural activist, and an important Chinese Communist political figure. The collection includes interviews, autobiographical writings, drama scripts, and art reviews, with particular attention to Wu's leadership of the First Anti-Japanese Resistance Propaganda Team (later renamed the Seventh Drama Propaganda Team). His writings also reflect his experiences during the Cultural Revolution, when he was labeled a leftist, composed confessions and testimonials, and was ultimately rehabilitated in 1978. The papers further comprise correspondence, photographs, albums, diaries, notebooks, and printed matter that illustrate Wu's career and family life. They include records concerning Wu Jian, Wu's second son, who committed suicide in a labor camp, as well as autobiographies, correspondence, and diaries of Wu's wife, Zhang Peihua, who devoted significant effort to preserving the family's archives and Wu's legacy.

 

The Chin-Tang Lo Papers document the career of Chin-Tang Lo, the first scholar to earn a Ph.D. in Chinese literature in Taiwan from the National Taiwan University (1960). The collection includes diplomas, letters of appointment, and Lo's scholarly and autobiographical publications, as well as more than 500 letters from prominent intellectual, cultural, and political figures across East Asia and beyond. Also featured are photographs and inscriptions presented to Lo by mentors and colleagues, many associated with his Hundred Butterflies Album, reflecting his versatile pursuits as scholar, poet, and artist.

 

The Myron L. Cohen Papers document Cohen's anthropological research in Taiwan and China from 1964 to 2003. Centered on his doctoral fieldwork in Meinong, a Hakka community in southern Taiwan, the collection contains account books, household and land records, local publications, and extensive research notes. Later materials reflect Cohen's broader inquiries into kinship and family in Chinese communities, including Hebei and Shanghai. The papers also preserve his academic correspondence and drafts of writings from the 1990s to early 2000s.

 

This collection contains approximately 282 letters, written during 1970 and 1974 by Chen Yande and Li Yaying, two educated youths sent down for labor education to the Gutian Township, Shanghang County, Longyan, Fujian. Chen worked in a coal mine while Li worked in a rural commune. They exchanged correspondences frequently and shared stories and details of their respective life during the height of the Cultural Revolution. In 1972, Li Yaying was admitted to the Nanjing Railway Medical College and they continued to write to each other. The letters are chronologically arranged.

 

To access these collections, one needs to make an in-person appointment via Columbia’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library.