National first-class universities discuss and disseminate the beauty of school history and culture, with images of the college entrance examination season | universities | culture

"Image evidence of history" was originally a research method in the field of Western art history to understand and reconstruct history. In the 1970s and 1980s, there was a "cultural turn" in the field of Western historiography, which introduced image interpretation into research methods such as psychoanalysis and structuralism, interpreting images and understanding history from diverse perspectives. For the academic community in our country, imageology is an extension of traditional historical imageology and archaeology. In recent years, imageology has been widely used and practiced as a research method in history.

How to use "image evidence" to try new methods of disseminating university history? On June 8th, a seminar on the publication of "Illustrated History of East China Normal University" and visual narrative of university history was held at East China Normal University. More than 40 national university history research experts and archive directors from Peking University, Tsinghua University, Fudan University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Zhejiang University, and other universities participated in the seminar.

Tang Tao, the director of the Archives of East China Normal University and the editor in chief of this book, introduced that "Illustrated History of East China Normal University" is a reading material on the history of East China Normal University compiled in the form of historical evidence. This historical chart comprehensively reflects the more than 70 years of establishment and 140 years of educational history of East China Normal University. The content is divided into five parts, namely the first part "Tracing the Origin of the Turkic Era: Establishing the First Socialist Normal University in New China", the second part "Good Teachers of the Normal Era: Exploring a New Socialist Normal University", the third part "Building a High level Comprehensive Research University through Unity and Multidisciplinary Studies", the fourth part "Thinking Together in the Sky: Creating a World Famous University", and the fifth part "Striving for Higher Education in the World: The Journey towards a world-class university". Mei Bing, Secretary of the Party Committee of East China Normal University, and Qian Xuhong, President, pointed out in the preface that in the long-term process of education, East China Normal University has formed a unique culture and university spirit. Based on the new era, the school is fully implementing outstanding education, academic excellence and governance, and building a Chinese style modern and elegant university with profound culture and outstanding wisdom. I hope this book "Illustrated Explanation of East China Normal University" can become an important reference for the school's "first lesson for freshmen".

The Archives of East China Normal University adheres to the principle of "archives as the foundation and school history as the application", and has launched a series of more than 30 types of "Liwa Archives" with nearly 30 million words, forming a three-dimensional genealogy of archive compilation and school history research. These school history books provide a relatively complete display of the research achievements in school history, but most of them are written descriptions and have not published any visual school history.

Not only East China Normal University, but according to preliminary surveys, about 5% of China's more than 3000 universities have published history books, or about 150 universities. These historical works have enriched the study of school history, but overall, the intuitive, vivid, and warm research method of "visual evidence of history" is still a new topic in the vast majority of universities, and its specific application is far from broad enough.

At the seminar, Wang Yao, the director of the Sculpture and Public Art Department at the School of Fine Arts of East China Normal University, proposed that the art world has entered the era of images, and "image theory" is not just at the level of combining images and text, but rather a super textual expression of real things, essentially an expansion of thinking. Lin Qimo, an associate researcher at the Peking University History Museum, believes that the key to "verifying history through images" lies in the word "verification". Images are moments and fragments of history, and their value needs to be appropriately interpreted and used by historians based on extensive research and analysis of background historical materials in order to be reflected.

Jin Fujun, Deputy Director of the History Research Office of Tsinghua University, proposed that combining image interpretation with historical research to transform rich historical resources into rich educational and promotional resources is an important responsibility of school historians. Qian Yimin, Director of the History Research Office of Fudan University, believes that in addition to academic papers and works, the narrative of university history also requires new methods, including visual narration. "People often understand universities through narration. Society has high expectations for universities, and people crave for intuitive university narratives."

"Image archives have unique historical value and advantageous functions in the research and application of university history. In the research of university history, we should actively promote the inclusion, publication, or verification of images in history," said Ou Qijin, Deputy Director of the Archives and Cultural Museum Center of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Wang Dong, the director of the Archives of Zhejiang University, proposed that in the development stage of China's higher education over the past century, through the verification of images and texts, there is a truth with pictures, which can better reach the essence of facts. Zhang Huaming, the director of the Tongji University History Museum, believes that how to guide netizens to gain something from "reading pleasure" is an issue that universities, as social and cultural highlands, should pay attention to.

Tang Tao stated that for researchers of university history, a thorough study of the development of higher education is necessary to have a better outlook for the future. He hopes that through the seminar, researchers of university history across the country can further pay attention to and fully understand the modernization process of Chinese style universities, enhance the brand of university culture, transform the beauty of university history and culture into the beauty of university culture, and through public dissemination, transform the beauty of university culture into the beauty of social culture.

The seminar is hosted by the School History Research Branch of the Chinese Higher Education Association, and organized by the Archives of East China Normal University and the Higher Education Professional Committee of the Shanghai Archives Society.

The following is from "Illustrated East China Normal University"

In 1925, the "June 3rd Incident" broke out at St. John's University, and Guanghua University was born

In 1937, the library of Daxia University

On National Day in the 1950s, a gathering took place in the dormitories of the Political and Educational Department of East China Normal University

On October 16, 1951, East China Normal University held its establishment and opening ceremony

In April 1956, the Fourth Sports Conference of East China Normal University

In September 1980, the Youth History Society, a student club established by the History Department of East China Normal University, was founded

In the 1980s, students from the Xiayu Poetry Society of East China Normal University were on Xiayu Island

In September 1985, East China Normal University celebrated its first Teacher's Day

On March 28, 2011, the groundbreaking ceremony of New York University in Shanghai was held

On November 27, 2016, East China Normal University held the 10th International Cultural Festival Carnival Series of Activities - Square Culture Festival