Academia and Cultural Production: Yu Dan and Her Confucius from the Heart: Ancient Wisdom for Today's World

Chinese professor Yu Dan and her book Yu Dan Lunyu xinde, (Confucius from the Heart: Ancient Wisdom for Today's World), became an immediate cultural success, contributing to the promotion and the popularity of people's interest in the Chinese classics and national studies. As a work which bears the marks of both Confucian ideology and popular Confucian cultural traits, the Yu Dan phenomenon captures the development of the national studies craze, in particular those areas relevant to Confucian ideas and principles in contemporary China. Yu Dan's popularity indicates a recent revival of ancient Chinese cultural, philosophical, and moral traditions in their relationship with modern Chinese society, and their use by contemporary Chinese people. This article analyses the development of the Yu Dan phenomenon and the intense debate it has stimulated, reviewing its subtle collaboration with official discourse and propaganda, and its success as a cultural product. It also analyses the role the Yu Dan phenomenon plays in changing the social status and functions of intellectuals in the contemporary Chinese political-social-cultural milieu.