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Qing Qian (钱青 aka Ching Jean Tsien) (Sept. 8, 1932-May 17, 2020), was a professor of English and American literature at Beijing Foreign Studies University. She got a Ph.D. in American literature at the University of Chicago in 1984 and was one of the first Chinese Ph. D.s in American literature after China opened up to the outside world again in 1978. She served as director of graduate studies in the College of English (formerly the English Department) at Beijing Foreign Studies University (1985-2002) and promoted the professionalization of English and American literature studies at the university. She was also the editor of several major collections of English and American literary studies that had a significant impact on promoting English and American literature in Chinese higher education in the 1990s and 2000s. Qing Qian was an editor of the journal Foreign Literature (in Chinese), and Vice-President of the Chinese Association of American Literature.

Early Life
Qing Qian was born on Sept. 8, 1932 in Nanjing, China. Her father was Tsuen-dien Tsien (钱存典), a cultural attache at the Chinese embassy to Britain in the 1940s. Her mother was Wen-xiu Xu(许文绣). She had four sisters and two brothers. Her great-great grandfather was Qian Guisen, a prominent Chinese scholar who was a jinshi degree holder in the imperial Chinese examinations and was a teacher to prominent Republican Chinese leaders such as Xu Shichang and Duan Qirui. One of her father’s brothers was Tsuen-hsuin Tsien, a prominent Sinologist and librarian at the University of Chicago.

From 1937-1947, Qian Qing stayed in England as her father, a Republican Chinese diplomat, worked in the Chinese embassy in Britain. She attended junior high school at South Hampstead High School and after returning to Shanghai following her father’s completion of assignment at the Chinese embassy in Britain, completed her high school in an English-language high school in Shanghai.

Career and achievements
Qing Qian studied biology at Soochow University (东吴大学). She taught high school chemistry and biology at a high school in Haicheng, Liaoning Province (1953-1956). She applied for and was admitted for the Associate Ph.D. program at the English Department of Beijing Foreign Languages Institute, the forerunner of Beijing Foreign Studies University, in 1957. The Associate Ph.D. degree programs were introduced from the Soviet Union in 1955 but quickly discontinued in 1958 as the Chinese relationship with the USSR deteriorated. Qing Qian received her associate Ph.D. degree in 1958 and continued on in the Department of English at Beijing Foreign Studies University as a lecturer. After the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), Qing Qian went to study English and American literature at the University of Chicago (1981-1984) and received her Ph.D. in American literature. Her advisers were James E. Miller and Robert E. Streeter. She was promoted to associate professor in 1985 and then professor of English at Beijing Foreign Studies University in 1986.

As the director of graduate studies in the College of English at Beijing Foreign Studies University (1985-2002), Qing Qian invited many leading American literary scholars to BFSU, mentored junior scholars, and promoted their advancement, playing an important role in developing a post-Cultural Revolution generation of young scholars of English and American literature in China. She was also the editor of volumes of English and American literature, including Collections of American Literature (1994, in Chinese), Nineteenth-Century English Literature (2005, in Chinese), and Collections of English and American Literature (2005, in Chinese). She also authored numerous books and articles on English and American literature and translated works of Willa Cather and Robert Coover into Chinese.