Zhou Xunchu

Zhou Xunchu (1929–2024) was a native of Nanhui County, Shanghai, and a professor at the School of Liberal Arts, Nanjing University, as well as an honorary senior professor of humanities and social sciences and director of the Jiangsu Provincial Research Institute of Culture and History. He devoted himself to the study of ancient Chinese literary history, the history of Chinese literary criticism, classical Chinese philology, and ancient Chinese intellectual history. His works span the literature of the Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties, Tang and Song notebook fiction, and Li Bai studies, including Essays on the Literature of the Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties, A Brief History of Chinese Literary Criticism, A Study of Tang Notebook Fiction, and The Enigma of the Immortal Poet Li Bai, and he edited the Collected Works of Xie Lingyun and Bao Zhao. His book Hardship Accompanied by Joy records his scholarly experience. He also served as chief editor of Complete Poems of the Tang and Five Dynasties and the Dictionary of Tang Poetry, contributing to the collation of ancient texts and to literary appreciation and the popularization of classics.