Yi Zhongtian

Yi Zhongtian is a historian, author, scholar and TV personality. He is a professor at Xiamen University.

Biography

Yi Zhongtian's family comes from Xiangyin, in Yueyang, Hunan province. He was raised in Changsha, Hunan province. In 1965, after graduating from high school, he was sent to Xinjiang as a member of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. Returning from Xinjiang, he studied at Wuhan University, majoring in ancient Chinese. He is currently a professor at Xiamen University's College of Humanities.

Academic

Yi Zhongtian's academic interest spans a variety of disciplines, including literature, visual art, anthropology, and history. He has particular interest in the development of modern Chinese cities.

Yi Zhongtian's published works often focussed on poplarising academic subjects. This has caused some controversy, but has also led to the popularity of his books. Yi Zhongtian became a household name after the success of his appearance on CCTV-10's Lecture Room program in 2005. His series of lectures on personalities of the Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms were very successful, but also roused some controversy about the academic quality of his lectures. Because of the popularity of Yi Zhongtian's lectures, he has now been contracted by CCTV-10 to produce a series of lectures on the Three Kingdoms throughout 2006 that air on Sundays, separate from the normal schedule of lecture programs.