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Letters

Feel strongly about these letters, or any other aspects of the news? Share your views by emailing us your Letter to the Editor at letters@scmp.com or filling in this Google form. Submissions should not exceed 400 words.
I read with great interest the letter, “Why do the humanities not have awards like the Fields Medal or Nobel Prize?” (August 24). Your correspondent poses a question that I have wondered why so few people ask.
As the bearer of a doctoral degree in English literature, I can confirm that major awards spur innovation and achievement, inspiring scholars to seek out the highest mountains of the mind. Why, then, is there no Fields Medal for historians, literary critics, philosophers and their ilk?
After considering this question for the better part of a decade, I have arrived at a rather depressing answer: humanists simply don’t deserve one.
Your correspondent notes that humanities “produce forms of knowledge whose impact is often difficult to quantify”. I wish this were true. The main difference between the sciences and the humanities does not have to do with quantifiability. It has to do with what passes for knowledge in the first place.
During my more than 10 years in the academy, I found humanists operated under a categorically different model from, say, mathematicians and physicists. Whereas scientists generally try to uncover permanent laws that reveal the objective truths of the universe, humanists generally seek to produce popular paradigm shifts from the work of earlier generations.
In literature, for example, a major revolution occurred when the New Criticism of the 1940s was supplanted by the New Historicism of the 1980s. Now, in 2026, the surviving New Historicists find themselves in the twilight of their careers, and they are largely dismissed, attacked or – worst of all – simply ignored by a younger generation of identity-focused scholars who could not build careers while also acknowledging the contributions of their blinkered elders.
If young scientists stand on the shoulders of giants, then young humanists seem to succeed in another way: by slaughtering the giants.
The differences in the incentive structures suggest a host of practical questions that would probably plague a Fields Medal for the humanities. Who would judge the award? What would be the criteria? And most critically, would the winners survive in the court of public opinion after winning?
Even these basic questions have no easy answers, and this is a sad state of affairs. Perhaps one day humanists will be worthy of a Fields Medal. Not today.
Andrew Williamson, founder, Williamson Education
Parents can help children gain fluency in Chinese
I refer to the letter, “Hong Kong’s ethnic minority students face a new challenge – Mandarin” (August 10).
I strongly agree that Hong Kong’s Chinese-as-a-second-language curriculum should be improved to cater to the needs of our ethnic minorities in acquiring both Cantonese and Mandarin.
I wish to point out that successful acquisition of Chinese does not hinge merely on formal education. Parents play a crucial role as well. Language classes can provide students with basic knowledge, but one can only become fluent in a language by constantly using it.
In fact, even with an established English language curriculum, a lot of local students struggle with English precisely because they don’t use it in daily life.
Parents from ethnic minority communities should encourage their children to use more Chinese at home or with friends. When dining out or visiting a store, parents should also encourage their children to interact more with locals in Chinese.
Parents can themselves serve as a role model by learning and using Chinese in daily life. They need not be fluent in the language but at least they should show their children they are trying.
This is not something difficult to imagine. My parents migrated to Hong Kong from rural villages on the Chinese mainland. Although they did not even finish their secondary school education, they tried hard to speak English with me at home during my childhood. It was through these conversations at home, on top of the formal education I received at school, that I eventually picked up the language.
Given the additional challenge of Mandarin, which imposes more of a burden on children, the role of parents in education has become even more important.
A. Chan, Guangzhou


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Education

Today’s humanists don’t deserve the likes of a Fields Medal

A librarian in the northern town of Saint-Omer, near Calais, carefully shows an example of a valuable Shakespeare “First Folio”, a collection of some of his plays, dating from 1623. Photo: AFP 

Why do the humanities not have awards like the Fields Medal or Nobel Prize?

Fields Medalists Deng Yu (first left) and Wang Hong (first right), both Chinese mathematicians, John Pardon (second left), an American mathematician, and Jacob Tsimerman, a Canadian mathematician, pose for a photograph at the opening ceremony of the 2026 International Congress of Mathematicians in Philadelphia, US, on July 23. Photo: Xinhua

Jason Arday’s death highlights pressure on star minority academics

Members of the public walk past floral tributes to remember academic Jason Arday, attached to the railings outside Senate House at the University of Cambridge on August 15. Cambridge’s vice-chancellor said on August 14 that the UK university was “desperately saddened” by the death of Arday, who quit the prestigious institution last week amid a plagiarism scandal. Photo: AFP

A person walks past Jesus College, where Jason Arday was a fellow, at the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, eastern England, on August 15. Photo: AFP

Jason Arday carries the Olympic flame during the torch relay leg between Sutton and Merton, in London, on July 23, 2012. Photo: LOCOG/PA via AP

Don’t leave Hong Kong parents to their own devices on child social media use

Girls focus on a smartphone inside a fast-food outlet in Kennedy Town on August 7. Photo: Karma Lo

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (left) talks to schoolchildren and the Premier of South Australia Peter Malinauskas (right), as he cooks sausages on a barbecue during an official function to mark the start of Australia’s social media reform at Kirribilli House in Sydney on December 10, 2025. Photo: AFP

A YouTube advertisement runs at Westminster Underground station after then British prime minister Keir Starmer announced a social media ban for under 16-year-olds, in London, Britain, on June 15. Photo: Reuters

Jason Arday’s death is not just a ‘woke Cambridge’ tragedy

Illustration: Dennis Yip

People take part in a vigil, organised by campaign group Stand Up to Racism, for British professor Jason Arday on the steps of the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square on August 17. Photo: PA Wire/dpa

A photo of late Cambridge professor Jason Arday is pictured along with floral tributes, attached to the fencing by supporters around the Senate House at the University of Cambridge on August 18, following his death at age 41 on August 14. Photo: AFP

Why Asimov’s Foundation series still resonates in the AI era

Actor Jared Harris (centre) plays mathemetician Hari Seldon, seen here with Leah Harvey and Lou Llobell, in the Foundation TV series. Photo: Apple TV+

When Asimov began writing Foundation 85 years ago, he was capturing the cutting-edge intellectual currents of his era. Photo: Handout

The rise of artificial intelligence, data mining and behavioural profiling has enabled social engineering on levels previously unseen by humanity. Photo: dpa

Opinion

Readers discuss recognition for humanities scholars, and the challenges of ethnic minority children in Chinese language acquisition


Readers discuss recognition for humanities scholars, and the challenges of ethnic minority children in Chinese language acquisition.


Guangzhou

China

Hong Kong

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Readers discuss recognition for humanities scholars, and the challenges of ethnic minority children in Chinese language acquisition

Readers discuss recognition for humanities scholars, and the challenges of ethnic minority children in Chinese language acquisition