Lin Yan, Professor, School of Chinese Language and Literature, Central China Normal University. His researches mainly focus on the history of the Song and the Yuan Dynasties’ literature, and the socio-cultural history of the Imperial Civil Examination System. Currently, he is working on the case study of retired scholar-officials of the Song dynasty, while exploring new research directions in the Song Dynasty literary collections. He is the author of The Imperial Civil Examinations and Literature in the Northern Song Dynasty (《北宋科举考试与文学》). And he has published numerous research articles.