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Names Across Cultures / Scholar dossier

Stephen Owen

宇文所安

Stephen Owen appears in the extended index for work in literature.

1946—2026

Name analysis

Four axes, kept separate.

01

Origin / agency

self chosen

Self-chosen; directly explained by Owen in a recorded interview.

02

Formation

hybrid

Owen described choosing a partly Han, partly non-Han name, with 所安 drawn from the Analects.

03

Usage status

self used · academic conventional

Origin documented.

04

Script context

chinese language label

Mandarin: Yǔwén Suǒ'ān

The name biography

What the record can say.

Self-chosen; directly explained by Owen in a recorded interview.

Literal gloss is not historical intent

Yuwen is a historical Xianbei surname; suo an echoes ‘observe where one finds ease.’

Person, materials, and method

Scholarship in context.

Stephen Owen's profile places his scholarship in Tang poetry, Chinese literary thought, and literary history.

His Chinese name was self-chosen. Owen explained in a recorded interview that he wanted a form that was partly Han and partly non-Han, and that its given-name element alludes to a phrase in the Analects about observing where a person finds ease.

Research areas: literature. The claim ledger below separates sourced facts from editorial interpretation.

Claim / source ledger

Evidence is part of the page.

  1. ID
    stephen-owen-identity
    Confidence
    high
    Claim
    Stephen Owen is represented in the reviewed source as a scholar working in literature.
  2. ID
    stephen-owen-name-usage
    Confidence
    high
    Claim
    宇文所安 is the Chinese-language form documented by the cited name-specific source.
  3. ID
    stephen-owen-name-origin
    Confidence
    high
    Claim
    Self-chosen; directly explained by Owen in a recorded interview.
  4. ID
    stephen-owen-life-dates
    Confidence
    high
    Claim
    Stephen Owen lived 1946—2026.