Chinese university to compile textbooks for intangible cultural heritage studies

TIANJIN, May 12 (Xinhua) -- Tianjin University in north China's Tianjin Municipality has launched its textbook compiling project for the undergraduate and master's courses on intangible cultural heritage studies, a milestone in building China's fledging discipline of these cultural heritage studies.

In October 2021, China authorized Tianjin University to grant the country's first interdisciplinary master's degree in intangible cultural heritage studies. It marked the relevant talent cultivation entering a new stage and China's intangible cultural heritage preservation undertaking shifting from mere "rescuing" to more scientific approaches.

As an interdisciplinary major, studies on intangible cultural heritage involve humanities, social science, and natural science. The new discipline aims to educate talents able to undertake intangible cultural heritage investigation and identification, inheritance and protection, publicity, transformation, and utilization.

The first edition of the textbooks will be published in three volumes, covering its general theory, studies on folk literature and art, and oral history of the cultural heritage inheritors. The textbooks will likely be compiled within this year.

"The textbooks will establish a complete knowledge system. It would be a rigorous and clear theoretical system for these studies to find a unique educational way and help cultivate research and management talents for intangible cultural heritage education," said Feng Jicai, chief editor of the textbook series and also a renowned Chinese writer.