Lauded Professor Hsu Cho-yun Passes

The Asian Studies community at the University of Pittsburgh is saddened to learn that Professor Hsu Cho-yun passed away on August 4th, 2025.  We join together at this time to remember his immense contribution to scholarship.
 
Professor Hsu Cho-yun was University Professor Emeritus of History, having taught and published groundbreaking research at the University of Pittsburgh for over fifty years.  His intellectual contributions have shaped and reshaped the field of Asian Studies, and he has had a direct impact on the thinking of numerous students and on his colleagues.  Extending from archaeology and ancient history to art history, anthropology, and the study of language he was an exemplary scholar who crossed boundaries of knowledge fearlessly and with determination.
 
Professor Hsu was the recipient of numerous prestigious international awards including honorary degrees, distinguished professorships, the AAS Award for Distinguished Contributions to Asian Studies in 2004 and, most recently, the Tang Prize in Sinology. He was also a founding director of the Chiang Ching-kuo foundation for Scholarly Exchange
 
Professor Hsu wrote and co-authored a large number of very influential books including Ancient China in Transition: An Analysis of Social Mobility, 722–222 B.C. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1965 and Western Chou Civilization, co-authored with Katheryn M. Linduff. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988.  This past year the Asian Studies Center was able to organize a panel at the annual AAS conference to celebrate Professor Hsu’s award of the 2024 Tang Prize in Sinology and to focus on the intellectual impact of his China: A New Cultural History, New York: Columbia University Press, 2012.  
 
While the epitome of a “scholar’s scholar,”  Professor Hsu was also a strong and effective advocate for what now is referred to as public facing scholarship.  At the University of Pittsburgh he supported efforts to develop teaching modules designed to build Asian Studies into the curriculum at all levels of instruction.  He effectively advocated for the incorporation of new technologies for the integration of Chinese culture and history into K-12 school curricula.  He has very instrumental in directing resources to teaching as well as research, enabling us to plan and run a very successful Summer Institute for Chinese Studies.  
 
Our continued success at the Center will be a testament to his deep commitment to Asian Studies.