William Theodore de Bary (born 1919) is an East Asian studies expert at Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

, with the title John Mitchell Mason Professor of the University and Provost Emeritus.

de Bary graduated from Columbia College of Columbia University

Columbia College of Columbia University

Columbia College is the oldest undergraduate college at Columbia University, situated on the university's main campus in Morningside Heights in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1754 by the Church of England as King's College, receiving a Royal Charter from King George II...

 in 1941, where he was a student in the first iteration of Columbia's famed Literature Humanities course. He then briefly took up graduate studies at Harvard before the US entered the Second World War. de Bary left the academy to serve in American military intelligence in the Pacific Theatre

Pacific Theater of Operations

The Pacific Theater of Operations was the World War II area of military activity in the Pacific Ocean and the countries bordering it, a geographic scope that reflected the operational and administrative command structures of the American forces during that period...

. Upon his return, he resumed his studies at Columbia, where he earned his PhD

PHD

PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

.

He has edited numerous books of original source material relating to East Asian (primarily Japanese and Chinese) literature, history, and culture, as well as making the case, in his book Nobility and Civility, for the universality of Asian values. He is recognized as essentially creating the field of Neo-Confucian studies.

Additionally, de Bary was active in faculty intervention during the Columbia University protests of 1968

Columbia University protests of 1968

The Columbia University protests of 1968 were among the many student demonstrations that occurred around the world in that year. The Columbia protests erupted over the spring of that year after students discovered links between the university and the institutional apparatus supporting the United...

 and served as the university's provost

Provost (education)

A provost is the senior academic administrator at many institutions of higher education in the United States, Canada and Australia, the equivalent of a pro-vice-chancellor at some institutions in the United Kingdom and Ireland....

 from 1971 to 1978. He has attempted to reshape the Core Curriculum of Columbia College to include Great Books

Great Books

Great Books refers primarily to a group of books that tradition, and various institutions and authorities, have regarded as constituting or best expressing the foundations of Western culture ; derivatively the term also refers to a curriculum or method of education based around a list of such books...

 classes devoted to non-Western civilizations. de Bary is additionally famous for rarely missing a Columbia Lions

Columbia Lions

The Columbia University Lions are the collective athletic teams and their members from Columbia University, an Ivy League institution in New York City, United States. The current director of athletics is M...

 football game since he began teaching at the university in 1953. A recognized educator, he won Columbia's Great Teacher Award in 1969, its Lionel Trilling

Lionel Trilling

Lionel Trilling was an American literary critic, author, and teacher. With wife Diana Trilling, he was a member of the New York Intellectuals and contributor to the Partisan Review. Although he did not establish a school of literary criticism, he is one of the leading U.S...

 Book Award in 1983 and its Mark Van Doren

Mark Van Doren

Mark Van Doren was an American poet, writer and a critic, apart from being a scholar and a professor of English at Columbia University for nearly 40 years, where he inspired a generation of influential writers and thinkers including Thomas Merton, Robert Lax, John Berryman, and Beat Generation...

 Award for Great Teaching in 1987. In 2010 he received the Philolexian Award for Distinguished Literary Achievement.

Now the director of the Heyman Center for the Humanities and still teaching, de Bary lives in Rockland County, New York

Rockland County, New York

Rockland County is a suburban county 15 miles to the northwest of Manhattan and part of the New York City Metropolitan Area, in the U.S. state of New York. It is the southernmost county in New York west of the Hudson River, and the smallest county in New York outside of New York City. The...

.

Major works

• Living Legacies at Columbia (2006)
• Nobility and Civility : Asian Ideals of Leadership and the Common Good, Harvard University Press
  Harvard University Press
  Harvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
  
   (2004)
• Asian Values and Human Rights : A Confucian Communitarian Perspective. Harvard University Press
  Harvard University Press
  Harvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
  
   (1998)
• Confucianism and Human Rights (1998)
• Mahābhārata (translation, 1998)
• Sources of Korean Tradition: Volume 1 (1997)
• Waiting for the Dawn : a Plan for the Prince (translation, 1993)
• Learning for One's Self : Essays on the Individual in Neo-Confucian Thought (1991)
• The Trouble with Confucianism, Harvard University Press
  Harvard University Press
  Harvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
  
   (1991)
• Approaches to the Asian Classics (1990)
• Message of the mind in Neo-Confucianism (1989)
• Neo-Confucian Education : the Formative Stage (1989)
• East Asian Civilizations : a Dialogue in Five Stages, Harvard University Press
  Harvard University Press
  Harvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
  
  (1988)
• The Rise of Neo-Confucianism in Korea (1985)
• The Liberal Tradition in China (1983)
• Yüan thought : Chinese Thought and Religion under the Mongols (1982)
• Neo-Confucian Orthodoxy and the Learning of the Mind-And-Heart (1981)
• Principle and Practicality : Essays in Neo-Confucianism and Practical Learning (1979)
• Unfolding of Neo-Confucianism (1975)
• The Hindu Tradition: Readings in Oriental Thought (1972)
• Self and Society in Ming Thought (1970)
• The Buddhist Tradition in India, China and Japan (1969)
• Approaches to Asian Civilizations (1964)
• Guide to Oriental Classics (1964)
• Sources of Japanese Tradition: Volume 1 (1964)
• Sources of Chinese Tradition: Volume 1 (1960)
• Approaches to the Oriental Classics: Asian Literature and Thought in General Education (1959)
• Sources of Indian Tradition (1957)

(Source: Library of Congress Online Catalog)

External links

• Your Columbians: William Theodore de Bary