This banner year marks the 70th anniversary of Canadian doctor Norman Bethune’s 1938 departure to China, as well as the centenary of the birth of French philosopher and author Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986), who lent her name 30 years ago to the Concordia women’s studies college, the Simone de Beauvoir Institute. While these iconic figures appear to have little in common, they shared a strong affection for China and, today, their respective legacies are very much alive at Concordia.
Bethune, born in 1890 in Gravenhurst, Ont., lived and worked as a surgeon in Montreal before he left for Spain in 1936 to assist the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. Two years later, he headed to China and became a battlefield surgeon and national hero during its war with Japan. He died just a year later, at age 49.
Most Concordia alumni are familiar with Bethune from the statue that has stood since 1978 across from the Guy Metro Building and is a familiar rallying spot for student protests and gatherings. The statue has been temporarily moved while construction is underway for Place Bethune within the developing Quartier Concordia, where the good doctor will take up permanent residence this fall.
Concordia’s strong ties to China and its universities extend beyond Bethune and de Beauvoir. In 1975, Martin Singer, then a young sinologist who later became Concordia’s provost, led 40 travellers from Canada to China—one of the largest Western groups permitted until then into the communist country— as part of a new course called East Asia: Past and Present. In the next decade or so, similar trips and an increasing number of academic exchanges ensued, while Concordia joined Canadian programs to help the Chinese rebuild their higher education system.
Today, while China emerges as one of the world’s superpowers, it continues to grapple with important social issues, including democracy, Tibetan unrest, human rights and the environment. However, as Concordia Political Science Professor Kimberley Ens Manning cautions, “It’s folly to ignore China.” Manning is among the 12 Concordia faculty members whose work is profiled in “Concordia and China” on page 8, which covers some of the diverse, China-related work being carried out across Concordia’s four academic faculties. She’s also one of the driving forces behind a possible inter-university centre that will gather experts from the four Montreal universities to examine contemporary China. “Part of scholars’ raison d’être is to engage in debate and think critically,” Manning says. “By studying China, we put the focus on important issues and bring a fresh perspective when we deal with government, businesses and fellow professors.”
Simone de Beauvoir, like Bethune in the ‘30s and Concordia faculty members today, was also fascinated with China. Like many French intellectuals in the ‘40s and ‘50s, the author of the landmark feminist treatise The Second Sex (1949) was intrigued by communism and travelled to China and the Soviet Union in 1955 with her long-time partner, philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. De Beauvoir recounted her trip in The Long March (1958), although the book received some criticism for its simplistic take on Chinese communism. In the ‘60s and ‘70s, she proved to be a major influence on the women’s movement.
The founders of Concordia’s Simone de Beauvoir Institute acknowledged that fact when they named their new institution in 1978, with de Beauvoir’s blessing (see “Changing the World” on page 18 for the quirky details). As the Institute turns 30, it remains a vibrant and vital hub of women’s studies and activism, with its faculty members and students channelling de Beauvoir’s spirit as they defy orthodoxy. Simone would be proud.
