Hu Yilin’s Recruitment Notice [Expired]

15,415 characters2017.04.16

Tsinghua University has suddenly changed its policy again and taken back the admissions rights of all its tenure-track professors, so this admissions notice is temporarily invalid. Let’s wait until I’ve clawed my way to tenure before talking about it……

Following my teacher Wu Guosheng, I was extraordinarily lucky to join Tsinghua University as a faculty member, and just last month I became an assistant professor in the School of Humanities.

At present I am still affiliated with the Department of Philosophy. Once the Department of the History of Science, being set up by Teacher Wu, is officially established, I will also belong to the Department of the History of Science (in fact, I very much hope to remain connected with the Department of Philosophy as well).

Tsinghua has introduced the American tenure track system and established a tenure-track–tenured system. As an assistant professor, I of course fall under the tenure-track category; my contract is renewed every three years, and in the end it is either promotion or departure, so the pressure is not small. But the new system does bring some benefits to young faculty. Besides the higher salary, the most important thing is that although, in terms of title, I am equivalent to a lecturer, I am already allowed to supervise doctoral students.

If everything goes smoothly, I may be able to admit my first cohort of students as early as next semester. Happiness has come rather suddenly, and I have not yet begun looking around for candidates. So let me first put out an ad and see what happens? I hope all teachers and friends will help spread the word, or directly recommend suitable candidates to me.

1. Basic information about myself

I (Hu Yilin) was born in 1985, male, from Shanghai. In 2004 I entered the Department of Philosophy at Peking University for my bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral studies, and graduated in 2014. My doctoral supervisor was Teacher Wu Guosheng. After receiving my PhD, I did a postdoc at Beijing Normal University for two and a half years, under Teacher Tian Song.

In March 2017 I entered the Department of the History of Science in the School of Humanities at Tsinghua University, and I am now an assistant professor. The field in which I may recruit students is perhaps “philosophy of science,” or perhaps “history of science” — the distinction is not a big one. No matter under what label I recruit them, my students may work on topics leaning toward philosophy or leaning toward history, but they must also have a certain philosophical grounding and historical vision.

My doctoral dissertation was a philosophical interpretation of media ecology, and the original PDF can be found at this link. In addition, when I taught a general history-of-science course at Beijing Normal University, I produced a popular book, Outdated Wisdom. These two texts basically reflect my two main research areas: the (phenomenological) philosophy of technology and the history of scientific thought. I do not require students to read too much of what I myself have written, but candidates, if they are being responsible for their own future, should surely have some understanding of the work of the advisor they are considering. So I recommend that you at least choose one of these two texts and read it through. Of course, it is even more welcome if, according to your personal interests, you simply browse freely around my blog (https://yilinhut.net).

2. Basic requirements for applicants

1. Quality over quantity

Although my own limited credentials are a real shortcoming, I believe that being my student will not be a loss in any respect. Neither I nor my students need to cheapen ourselves. I will not deliberately lower the threshold, and even less will I use my quotas as favors. If you think you cannot get into a more popular program or with a bigger-name professor, and want to use my slot as a fallback, then please do not count on luck. My threshold will not be lower than Teacher Wu’s, and my requirements will not be lower than Teacher Wu’s either. Teacher Wu’s requirements can be referred to in his notice.

2. Be committed to scholarship

Doctoral study is the starting point of an academic career; doing a doctorate means entering the path of scholarship. I hope all of my doctoral students will aim to engage in academic research, rather than simply getting a diploma and then finding some other kind of job. Of course, a person’s aspirations do not remain unchanged throughout life; depending on your own growth and changing development, and on changes in the external environment, you may change your mind during the PhD, and I will not stand in your way. But at least at the moment of enrollment, I hope my students have made up their minds to become scholars. To put it another way: we advocate freedom in love and marriage, and if life becomes unbearable you can divorce at any time; but at the solemn moment of marriage, you should at least have resolved to spend “a lifetime” together, rather than merely “a few nights and then leave.”

3. Love freedom

I do not require students to take any particular political stance, but at least in matters involving academic research, one should cherish and pursue independence of thought and speech. Think for the sake of thought, do scholarship for the sake of scholarship. You may support or criticize any view held by anyone, including me, but do not make scholarship subordinate to power. One should believe that the “publicness” of speech is a good thing, and regard “intellectual” as a good word.

4. Take responsibility for freedom

Freedom is not only a beautiful thing; more often, freedom is a kind of trouble. People want to be pampered in every possible way, to have food placed in their mouths and clothes handed to them, and to have others tell them what to do. In China, education from primary school through high school basically follows this model, and students get used to striving along predetermined lines. So many students are still muddled after graduating from university: if others say being a civil servant is good, they rush en masse to become civil servants; if others say Tsinghua is good, they go and take the Tsinghua doctoral entrance exam. I hope my students are at least not those dazed and muddled “ordinary people,” but can possess a minimal degree of reflection on and orientation toward their own circumstances, and can also have some grasp of the research directions they will pursue in the future; at the very least, I hope they have the confidence to bear the choices they make.

5. Reading and writing

The basic work of academic research is nothing more than reading and writing. The points above are all difficult to assess in practice; what will really be examined is nothing other than reading and writing. I hope those who want to become my students will contact me as early as possible and communicate fully, so that both sides can make a choice. What I focus on most is reading and writing. Applicants should send me their proudest written works as early as possible, including papers, reading notes, or other essays; this is the basic basis on which I choose students. Naturally, those with stronger abilities in reading and writing foreign languages will have priority.

6. Other requirements of the School of Humanities at Tsinghua

I am also new here, and I do not yet understand Tsinghua’s system and procedures well enough. To avoid misleading anyone, I will not repeat them here; please consult authoritative sources for the relevant information.

3. Basic requirements after enrollment

1. Teaching and learning mutually promote each other

The reason primary and secondary school teachers instruct students is to transmit the Way, impart knowledge, and resolve doubts; but the reason university teachers recruit students is not merely to teach, but also to improve themselves through the mutual enrichment of teaching and learning. When I recruit students, I of course also hope to benefit from them in the end. Therefore, although I will not specify what students must research, at the very least they should be interested in my own research work, and their research directions should also be things that interest me. I hope my students will criticize, revise, or extend my work and views. I will not simply throw ready-made topics at my students, but I also do not want them to work on things that have no connection at all with me.

2. Actively engage in exchange

For this reason, I hope students will actively participate in various forms of exchange, such as the weekly luncheon for the whole department, which has already begun and is the continuation of the “Wu school” discussion seminar Teacher Wu held at Peking University. Once the Department of the History of Science grows to a dozen or so teachers in the future, each of whom has several students, it will probably be impossible for every student to participate, but I will at least require and ensure that my students take part for the long term.

In addition, for several years I have been hosting a weekly reading group, in which we have already read Kuhn, Heidegger, Stiegler, Levinas, and others. It may gradually become institutionalized in the future, and I hope my students will participate often.

My various courses in the future should be taken by my students, or they should serve as teaching assistants. I may also, in a targeted way, offer special courses for my own students or adjust the course content.

Finally, it is even more important to maintain close private communication. In fact, I am rather a casual homebody and not very good at initiating communication, but I am actually very easy to get along with, and I hope to build a relationship with my students in which we are both teachers and friends.

The places where students can help me are often also the places where students can benefit. Regular participation in exchange is also the most crucial benefit for students. Besides myself, the whole future team of the Department of the History of Science, made up of Teacher Wu Guosheng, senior brother Zhang Butian, and others, will undoubtedly create the best academic atmosphere. I hope students will cherish such a good environment, not only actively engaging with me, but also interacting more with the whole Department of the History of Science, as well as other relevant teachers in other departments or nearby universities, and taking the initiative to audit various courses, lectures, and so on.

3. Other matters

Of course, some miscellaneous tasks outside academia will also very likely be handed to students to help with, but I will not require this in a coercive way. For more burdensome tasks, labor fees will definitely be provided, and meaningless social politeness activities will be avoided as much as possible. I also do not want students to do too much extra work in addition to their studies. However, if it is in order to experience more possibilities of life or to experience a richer world of experience, then I would be willing to support participation in social activities and internships. My students may be homebodies, or they may love traveling and sightseeing; but I do not want students to spend too much time busying themselves with things they fundamentally do not like. For example, if you are going to take a part-time job, it should be only because you find the part-time job itself interesting. In the case of family financial hardship, I am willing to help secure, or directly provide, financial support. I do not want students to be unable to devote themselves to scholarship because they are busy making a living. Of course, if you are especially concerned with making a living, then I am afraid you are not really suited to do scholarship in the first place.

4. Reading and writing

After enrollment, one should maintain the necessary amount of reading and writing. Even if the final dissertation topic has not yet been determined, one should remain in a state of reading and writing, and should share and exchange ideas frequently. For requirements regarding dissertation writing, please refer to this article.

4. Personalized requirements

All of the above are the most basic, minimal requirements, but specific circumstances vary from person to person and cannot be generalized.

For example, if you are an incoming undergraduate applying for direct-entry doctoral study, or if you are already in your thirties and have long since finished your master’s degree and are preparing for the entrance exam as a graduate applicant, then the requirements will be somewhat different. Personally, I prefer undergraduates with greater plasticity, but seasoned veterans with experience do not necessarily lack advantages. For undergraduates, it is hard to demand very deep academic foundations, so I may place more emphasis on qualities such as intelligence and character. And the older the applicant is at the time of application, the higher the demand for solid academic accumulation.

I do not worship elite universities, and I do not require students to come from a 985-211 institution, but a good university is ultimately an advantage; if there is a teacher I respect making the recommendation, then that is even better. This is not academic discrimination on my part, but because a good educational background itself is equivalent to having several more checkpoints. Students who lack a “background” will have to undergo more checkpoints, so I hope those who are interested in applying will contact me as early as possible, communicate with me more, and deepen mutual understanding.

The history of science and the philosophy of science is a field that blends the humanities and the sciences, so I welcome applicants with both science-and-engineering backgrounds and humanities-and-social-sciences backgrounds. But as for science-and-engineering students, I hope they are not applying because they have “lost interest in science and engineering”; they should be applying because they have developed an interest in the history of science or the philosophy of science. Because I know that this field often admits students who “couldn’t make it” in science-and-engineering majors and think this side will be easy to muddle through, but the result is often that they still do not study well. As for students with backgrounds in literature, history, and philosophy, their abilities in reading and writing should be held to even higher standards.

A student’s research direction may lean toward history, or it may lean toward philosophy, and different leanings also come with different requirements.

Those leaning toward history should be familiar with the name “Zhang Butian,” and should have read at least three or five history-of-science books translated by him (of course, if you read the original foreign-language works directly, that is another matter). You should know about Koyré and Kuhn. Those who hope to specialize in a certain period or a certain theme should have some familiarity with the relevant literature.

Those leaning toward philosophy should have read the classic works of Kant, Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Stiegler, and others (what I mean is at least chewed on some of them, not that you must have read them all—of course, if you have read them all, so much the better). You may read Teacher Wu Guosheng’s Lectures on the Philosophy of Technology or his edited Classic Readings in the Philosophy of Technology to understand the basic routine of “phenomenological philosophy of technology.” Although I also value the media ecology school (McLuhan, Innis, Ong, Postman, etc.), and of course it is good to have read those books as well, I have always been more inclined to admit students with a stronger philosophical background. Of course, in any case, if you have confidence, you can get in touch with me and see. As for the analytic-style philosophy of science, I cannot offer much help, and I do not recommend applying.

Here I don’t want to spell out the requirements too minutely. So-called personalized requirements are not so much something I have formulated for different situations as something each student should work out for themselves in light of their own background and aspirations. If your self-imposed requirements happen to match my implicit requirements, then you are very likely suited to be my student. If you do not yet meet the requirements, but have confidence in your learning ability and your potential for growth, you are also welcome to get in touch with me as early as possible. For example, if you contact me six months in advance, so that I can see your growth with my own eyes over those six months, that will of course count very strongly in your favor.

V. Articles on the blog that may be relevant

As an admissions notice, this article has already become too verbose, so I won’t say any more. Students who are still interested in learning more about my ideas and style can browse freely on my blog, or contact me directly. I have selected a number of articles that may be related to my teaching philosophy and listed them below:

On Phenomenology (I)

“Intention History” and the Aim of Historiography

Media as Environment — A Rough Philosophical Interpretation of Media Ecology

A Collected List of Recommended Books for the History of Science in General

My Course Plan for the History of Science Department

A Few Words on the Opening of “What Is Science”

About Writing Papers — A Summary of the “Academic Research Guide” Course

Love of Wisdom and Love of Country

The Shameful Greek Spirit

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April 2019 update:

You may also refer to Additional Notes on PhD Admissions Requirements; those who are impatient and want to know the practical method should read Further Addendum to PhD Admissions Requirements (Practical Questionnaire Version).
The article also recommends Personality Philosophy vs. Propositional Philosophy: On the Inevitability of the Decline of Continental Philosophy and the Immortality of Its Significance. In fact, the articles under the academic category are all worth browsing; they reflect my attitude toward scholarship and teaching.
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