About Nanxiu
2022年11月16日，在与癌症进行了长期斗争后，钱南秀在德克萨斯州休斯顿平静地去世，享年75岁。南秀于1947年6月18日出生在中国南京，父母是钱自民和周璘，她身后留下了儿子朱亮，朱亮的妻子徐琛，女儿Emma Linfeng Zhu;南秀的姐妹:钱曼倩、钱菊京、钱增约、她的兄弟钱大为和钱大经，她的侄子钱暘暘、钱眺眺、王卓、宁华以及她的侄女解隽、宁莉和徐梦珂。
南秀似乎无所不能。她是一位慈爱的母亲和祖母，一位杰出的中国文学学者，一位优秀的诗人和书法家，一位获奖的短篇小说作家、教师和翻译家。她有一副美妙的歌声，这使她能够唱出动人心灵的中国传统诗歌。
南秀就读于南京大学，1982年获得中国古典文学硕士学位，1981年至1986年任教。上世纪80年代末，她来到美国耶鲁大学东亚语言文学系学习，并于1994年获得博士学位。她的博士论文成为她的第一本书:《中国中世纪的精神与自我:诗说hsin-yü及其遗产》(檀香山:夏威夷大学出版社，2001年)。
1993年至2022年，南秀在德克萨斯州休斯顿的莱斯大学教授中国文学。她主要隶属于跨国亚洲研究系，但她也活跃于赵亚洲研究中心、妇女、性别和性研究中心和中世纪研究。在她任职期间，莱斯大学没有人比她更重视培养本科生，而且几乎没有教员能与她为学校提供的广泛服务相媲美。
她与历史系和艺术史系的成员一起进行了几门课程的团队教学，并组织并获得了在美国和国外的几次大型学术会议的资金——最近的一次是NEH。-于2017年在莱斯大学主办的国际会议上发表了两卷书，她担任主编:《重新思考中国圈:诗学、美学和身份形成》(阿默斯特，纽约:坎布里亚出版社，2020年)和《重新审视中国圈:东亚的文化传播和转型》(阿默斯特，纽约:坎布里亚出版社，2020年)
她对中文、日文和西方语言的研究使她的学术具有特别的广度、深度和分析的严谨性。她有敏锐的洞察力，她感兴趣的话题涉猎广泛。她优雅地写着中文和英文。在西方，她最著名的作品是她开拓性的、被广泛引用的五世纪中国巨著《世说新语》，但她也广泛地写了许多其他跨越两千年的中国文学作品，从Lienü传(模范妇女传记;从公元前1世纪到20世纪台湾小说，以及当代美国中国研究中的性别研究。
她的最后一本书是《晚清中国的政治、诗学和性别:薛少辉与改革时代》(斯坦福，加州:斯坦福大学出版社，2015)，这是一本备受推崇的政治和文学传记，讲述了19世纪末20世纪初中国一位杰出的女学者。在薛蛮子的众多成就中，她收集了200多名“模范”外国女性的生活故事，用南秀的话说，她向中国读者展示了这些人是如何“在男性主导的世界中雕刻出自我创造的空间”的。
Her research in Chinese, Japanese and Western languages gave her scholarship particular breadth, depth and analytical rigor. She had a penetrating intellect, and the topics that interested her ranged widely. She wrote gracefully in both Chinese and English. In the West, she was best known for her pioneering and much-cited work on the enormously influential fifth-century Chinese masterpiece Shishuo xinyu (A New Account of Tales of the World), but she also wrote extensively on a great many other Chinese literary works spanning some two thousand years, from the Lienü zhuan (Biographies of Exemplary Women; first century BCE), to twentieth century fiction in Taiwan, and gender studies in contemporary American China Studies.
Her last single-authored book was Politics, Poetics, and Gender in Late Qing China: Xue Shaohui and the Era of Reform (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015), a highly regarded political and literary biography of a remarkable woman scholar in late nineteenth and early twentieth century China. Among Xue’s many achievements, her collection of the life stories of more than 200 “exemplary” foreign women demonstrated to Chinese readers, in Nanxiu’s words, how these individuals “carved their self-invented space within the maledominated world.”
Nanxiu also wrote dozens of stimulating articles, essays and book chapters in Chinese and English, authored or co-authored several books in Chinese, and co-edited several conference volumes in both English and Chinese, including Different Worlds of Discourse: Transformations of Gender and Genre in Late Qing and Early Republican China and Beyond (Leiden: Brill, 2008), Zhongguo wenxue: Chuantong yu xiandai de duihua (Chinese Literature: Conversations between Tradition and Modernity (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2007), and Tradition and Modernity: Gender, Genre, and Cosmopolitanism in Late Qing China (Leiden: Brill, 2004).
But above all, and this is the true measure of a life, Nanxiu was a truly wonderful person. Everyone who knew her enjoyed, respected and admired her. She was extraordinarily generous with her knowledge and her time, kind to everyone, and full of vitality, wit, and good humor.
She will be sorely missed.
Written by the George and Nancy Rupp Professor Emeritus of Humanities Richard J. Smith
On Jan 6, 2023, we laid our dear colleague Dr. Nanxiu Qian to rest at her tree at Rice. Dr. Richard J. Smith, Dr. Shihshan Susan Huang, and Dr. Julie Fette went to inspect the tree’s surrounding (including visiting Richard’s tree, and walking to Nanxiu’s tree from there). We burned incense sticks to purify the surroundings. Then we went to Nanxiu’s office, burned incense in front of her ashes, and offered flowers that Julie had prepared. Susan recited Li Bo’s poem, which Richard had selected. Richard recited the English translation. We then brought Nanxiu’s ashes to her tree, buried her ashes, burned incense, and recited Li Bo’s poem again. Nanxiu is now resting in a “xue” (hole/lair/cave)穴 three of us created.
On Apr 7, 2023 we held a memorial for Nanxiu. Many thanks to Rice University, and the Department of Transnational Asian Studies, for hosting this memorial. Special thanks for all who spoke at the event, and who shared their experiences of our Nanxiu with us all: Dr. Lisa Balabanlilar, Dr. Kathleen Canning, Dr. Richard J. Smith, Liang Zhu, Dr. Shihshan Susan Huang, Lisa Hsieh, and Sarah J. Kong.
Many thanks to all our visitors
