The School of Literature, Nankai University was re-established at the end of 2000 as a comprehensive multidisciplinary school based on the former Department of Chinese Language & Literature and the Department of Oriental Arts. Among them, the Department of Chinese Language & Literature can be traced back to liberal arts when Nankai University was founded. The department was formally established in 1946 when Nankai University resumed operation, and its language discipline was originated from the “Frontier Humanities Research Office” during the period of Southwest Associated University.

The School of Literature has a strong faculty, with many outstanding scholars such as Ye Jiaying, Chen Hong, Zeng Xiaoyu, Zhang Yi and Zha Hongde. The School consists of two category: literature and art, and four first-level disciplines. Chinese Language & Literature, Fine Arts, Design and Art Theory, of which Chinese Language & Literature enjoys the right to grant doctoral degrees as first-level discipline. The second-level discipline “Ancient Chinese Literature” is a national key discipline, and “Linguistics and Applied Linguistics” is a national key discipline (under cultivation). In 1994, the Chinese Language & Literature program was selected as one of the first batch of national “base for talents training and scientific research in fundamental disciplines of liberal arts” In 2019, it was shortlisted in the first batch of “national first-class undergraduate major development program”, “national base for cultivating top students in basic disciplines 2.0”, and “plan for strengthening basic disciplines” of the Ministry of Education.

The School has 6 teaching units, including 3 departments and 2 public teaching departments. The Department of Chinese Language & Literature, the Department of Oriental Art, the Department of Art and Design, and the Center for Higher Chinese Language Education (responsible for teaching the university’s compulsory general education course “College Chinese”) and the Department of Culture and Quality Education (responsible for nearly one-third of the university’s general education courses). The “Literature Experimental Teaching Center of Nankai University” is a national experimental teaching demonstration center under the School of Literature.