Xingpei Yuan

One of China's leading scholars in the humanities, Yuan is best known for his two books on Tao Yuanming, arguably the most important Chinese poet before the Tang dynasty. He has written highly regarded scholarly works on Tang poetry, Chinese painting, calligraphy, poetics, and literary history, many of which have been translated into Japanese, Korean, and English. He serves as president of the Central Research Institute of Culture and History, a post equivalent to that of chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities in the United States.