David Keightley

David N. Keightley
Born (1932-10-25)October 25, 1932
London, England
Died February 23, 2017(2017-02-23) (aged 84)
Oakland, California, United States
Institutions University of California, Berkeley
Education Amherst College
New York University
Columbia University
Doctoral advisor Hans Bielenstein
Other academic advisors Burton Watson
Known for Studies of oracle bone script
Notable awards Guggenheim Fellowship (1978)
MacArthur Fellowship (1986)
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese 吉德煒
Simplified Chinese 吉德炜

David Noel Keightley (October 25, 1932 – February 23, 2017) was an American sinologist, historian, and scholar, and was for many years a professor of Chinese history at the University of California, Berkeley.[1][2] Keightley is best known for his studies of Chinese oracle bones and oracle bone script.

Life and career

David N. Keightley was born on October 25, 1932, in London, England, and lived there until his family moved to the United States in 1947. He attended Amherst College as an undergraduate student, graduating in 1953 with a B.A. in English with a minor in biochemistry. He then received a Fulbright Scholarship, which he used to study Medieval French at the University of Lille. He received an M.A. in modern European history from New York University in 1956. He then worked for several years at publishing companies in New York City and as a freelance writer before beginning his study of Chinese and Sinology.[3]

Keightley began his graduate study in East Asian history at Columbia University in 1962. In 1965, Keightley moved to Taipei, Taiwan where he studied Chinese for two years at the Stanford Center (modern Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Study).[3] He then returned to the United States to complete his doctoral studies at Columbia under the Swedish Sinologist Hans Bielenstein, and received a Ph.D. in 1969 with a dissertation entitled "Public Work in Ancient China: A Study of Forced Labor in the Shang and Early Chou".

After receiving his Ph.D. in 1969, Keightley was selected to replace Woodbridge Bingham (1901–1986) as professor of East Asian history at the University of California, Berkeley. Keightley became one of the leading Western scholars of Chinese oracle bones, which contain the earliest known examples of Chinese writing. In 1995, the American Sinologist Edward Shaughnessy stated that Keightley "has done more to introduce the depth and breadth of early China's oracle-bone divination to Western readers than any [other] scholar."[4] He taught and worked at Berkeley until his retirement in 1998.

Keightley died peacefully in his sleep at his home on February 23, 2017, aged 84.[5]

Awards

Books

Articles

References

Footnotes

  1. ↑ http://ieas.berkeley.edu/faculty/keightley.html
  2. ↑ http://history.berkeley.edu/faculty/Keightley/
  3. 1 2 Johnson (1995), p. vii.
  4. ↑ Shaughnessy (1995), p. 223.
  5. ↑ "David N. Keightley, 1932-2017". University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved 5 March 2017.

Works cited

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