丁文江

丁文江 is central to 19.荒野上的大师：“我辈于乱世求研究，本为逆流之妄举” as a geologist, organizer, and model of Fieldwork As Knowledge Method / 田野作为知识方法. The episode says he became the first head of the [[GeologicalResearchInstitute|地质研究所]] at a very young age and helped train a first generation of modern Chinese geologists through field survey, mining investigation, mapping, and laboratory practice.

The source also makes 丁文江 a reader and reinterpreter of [[XuXiake|徐霞客]]. Carrying 《徐霞客游记》 in the field, he recognizes that Xu had reached many places long before modern geology, then later edits and republishes Xu’s text to restore the knowledge-seeking meaning behind the older travel record. His later administrative work for the central academy is presented as institution-building that advanced Chinese scholarship but also consumed his own research time.

Key Claims

• Ding’s fieldwork rejects the stereotype of Chinese scholars as book-bound and unwilling to walk the land.
• His geology connects science to mines, labor, national resources, and global events.
• His recovery of Xu Xiake gives modern field science a Chinese genealogy.
• The episode treats him as one of the clearest cases of Modern Chinese Academic Institution Building / 中国现代学术制度建设 as scholarship.

Connections

• [[GeologicalResearchInstitute|地质研究所/地质调查所]] - institution he helped build.
• [[XuXiake|徐霞客]] - earlier traveler-scholar whom Ding rereads as a knowledge seeker.
• [[FuSinian|傅斯年]] - parallel institution designer in the episode.
• Fieldwork As Knowledge Method / 田野作为知识方法, Cosmopolitan Chinese Scholarship / 世界主义的中国学术, and Modern Chinese Academic Institution Building / 中国现代学术制度建设 - main concept links.