Francis L. K. Hsu

Francis L. K. Hsu (28 October 1909 Zhuanghe County, Liaoning, China  – 15 December 1999 Tiburon, California) was a China-born American anthropologist, one of the founders of psychological anthropology. He was president of the American Anthropological Association from 1977 to 1978.[1] [2]

The native form of this personal name is Xu Hongguang. This article uses Western name order when mentioning individuals.
Francis L. K. Hsu
許烺光 Xu Hongguang
Born(1909-10-28)28 October 1909
Zhuanghe, Liaoning, China
Died15 December 1999(1999-12-15) (aged 90)
Tiburon, California, United States
NationalityChinese American
Alma materUniversity of Shanghai
Fu Jen Catholic University
London School of Economics
Scientific career
FieldsAnthropology
InstitutionsNorthwestern University
Cornell University
Columbia University
Doctoral advisorBronisław Malinowski

Career

Hsu was born on October 28, 1909 in Zhuanghe, Liaoning, China. He entered Tianjin Nankai High School in 1923, graduated from the Department of Sociology at the University of Shanghai in 1933, entered the Graduate School of Fu Jen Catholic University in the same year, and later engaged in social work at Peking Union Medical College Hospital.[3]

He obtained the Boxer Indemnity Scholarship (United Kingdom) in 1937 and went to London to study anthropology at the London School of Economics, where he studied under Bronisław Malinowski. He obtained a doctorate in 1941 and was invited by Fei Xiaotong to return to China. In 1943, he was invited by Ralph Linton to visit the United States and he has since stayed in the country as a teacher.

He served as a lecturer at Columbia University from 1944 to 1945. Acting Assistant Professor at Cornell University from 1945 to 1947. In 1947, he was hired as a formal assistant professor at Northwestern University. He was promoted to professor ten years later and served as the head of the anthropology department from 1957 to 1976 for two decades. In 1964, he went to Japan to serve as a visiting professor at Kyoto University and conducted a field survey.[3]

Contributions

Hsu was among the founders of psychological anthropology. He has updated and renewed the methodology of cultural and personality research and expanded knowledge of large-scale civil society. His theory has influenced the development of Chinese psychology and the production of psychoculture. His research provides a non-Western perspective on the study of human behavior and is of great reference value to the research of behavioral science.

Retirement and death

Hsu retired from Northwestern in 1978 and was hired by the University of San Francisco as the director of the Cultural Research Center. He also served as a senior researcher at the East–West Center at the University of Hawaii. He retired again in 1982, but continued lectures and academic work.

He continued to write in 1986 in spite of a myocardial infarction, and then suffered another two strokes and had to stop academic research. In the end, he died in San Francisco on December 15, 1999 at the age of 91.[3]

Recognition

The American Anthropological Association established the Francis L. K. Hsu Book Prize to commemorate his contribution.

Selected publications

Books
  • 1943: Magic and Science in Western Yunnan. New York: Institute of Pacific Relations (55 pages).
  • 1948: Under the Ancestors' Shadow：Chinese Culture and Personality. New York: Columbia University Press (300 pages).
  • 1952: Religion, Science and Human Crises: A study of China in Transition and Its Implication for the west. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. New York: Grove Press (142 pages)
  • 1953: Americans and Chinese: Two Ways Of Life. New York: Abelard-Schuman, Inc. (457 pages).
  • 1963: Clan, Caste and Club：A Comparative Study of Chinese, Hindu and American Ways of Life. Princeton：Van Nostrand and Co. (335 pages).
  • 1967: Under the Ancestors' Shadow, with a new Chapter,「Kinship, Personality and Social Mobility in China.New York: Doubleday Anchor Books (370 pages).
  • 1969: The Study of Literate Civilizations. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston (123 pages).
  • 1970: Americans and Chinese：Purpose and Fulfillment in Great Civilizations. Updated and enlarged 2nd edition of Americans and Chinese：Two Ways of Life, 1953.New York: Natural History Press (493 pages).
  • 1971: Under the Ancestors' Shadow. (Reprint of 1967 version.) Stanford：Stanford University Press (370 pages).
  • 1971: The Challenge of the American Dream：The Chinese in the United States. Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Co. (160 pages).
  • 1974: China Day by Day, with Eileen Hsu-Balzer (許儀南)and Richard Balzer. New Haven: Yale University Press (111 pages). Account of a tour of the PRC.
  • 1974: Japan: Economic Miracle five sound filmstrips with cassettes. Series No.6907K, Encyclopedia Britannica Educational Corporation, Chicago.
  • 1974: Japan: Spirit of Iemoto, five sound filmstrips with cassettes. Series No.6908K, Encyclopedia Britannica Educational Corporation, Chicago.
  • 1975: Iemoto: The Heart of Japan. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Schenkman.
  • 1981: Americans and Chinese: Passage to Differences. An updated and enlarged third edition. Honolulu: The University Press of Hawaii (534 pages).
  • 1983: Rugged Individualism Reconsidered：Essays in Psychological Anthropology. (a collection of some essays from 1948 to 1979) .Knoxville：The University of Tennessee Press (467 pages).
  • 1984: Exorcising the Trouble Maker：Magic, Science and Culture. Greatly revised and enlarged new edition of Religion, Science and Human Crises (1952, 1971), incorporating new field data from the New Territories of Hong Kong. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press (164 pages).

Articles and chapters
  • ———— (1979). "The Cultural Problem of the Cultural Anthropologist". American Anthropologist. 81 (3): 517–532. doi:10.1525/aa.1979.81.3.02a00010.. Presidential Address, American Anthropological Association, Los Angeles, 1978. Free access HERE
  • ———— (1980). "Passage to Understanding". In Spindler, George D. (ed.). The Making of Psychological Anthropology. 239. Univ of California Press. pp. 142–173. ISBN 0520039572.
  • ———— (1999). "My Life as a Marginal Man: Autobiographical Discussions with Francis Lk Hsu (Interviewed and Recorded by Glt Hsu and Flk Hsu's Family)". Taipei, Taiwan: National Institute for Compilation and Translation/SMC.

References and further reading

Notes
  1. Northwestern University Archives.
  2. Serrie (2001), p. 168.
  3. 许烺光 - 北京大学社会学系
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