On May 10, 2019, the International Forum on Studies of Medieval and Renaissance European Literature was held at Building 2, Nanhuayuan Garden, Zijingang Campus by the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies of School (CMRS) of School of International Studies, Zhejiang University. The Forum consisted of two sessions, chaired by Prof. He Huibin and Prof. Hao Tianhu respectively, and with Prof. Nie Zhenzhao and Prof. Gao Fen as commentators. Some students and teachers from School of International Studies, Zhejiang University were also present.
The Forum kicked off successfully in Nanhuayuan Garden at 8:30 am. The first half was on Medieval and Renaissance Literature, with scholars examining the works of Shakespeare, John Milton, Geoffrey Chaucer and others from different perspectives. Prof. Shen Hong, a visiting scholar of Harvard University, failed to attend in person and had his speech read by a student, Lin weijian. Shen made a comparative study of the image of Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost with that of the Devil in John Bunyan’s The Holy War, analyzing the different modes of literary creation and the unique charm of Milton. Prof. Hao Tianhu studied two images, “navigation” and “door”, in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde and Ovid’s love poems in a contrastive way, revealing that the different attitudes and treatments of the two writers to history determine the different tones of their works. Prof. He Huibin interpreted Shakespeare’s Hamlet with the theory of modern brain science. Based on the character of Hamlet, who liked to harangue and vowed to avenge while feeling depressed and wasting his time, Prof. He inferred that Hamlet’s prefrontal brain may had been damaged. Associate Prof. Li Wenchao analyzed the state of event coding in Atlantic and Germanic languages with a combination of the framework of “Distribution Morphology”. Associate Prof. Zhu Zhenyu made an analysis of the image of “Joy Land” in Dante’s Valley of the Monarch. Mr. Yang Xiao discussed the love of women in medieval works. Ms. Ding Guang verified the “walking and being” in A. C. Moule’s Marco Polo. Finally, Prof. Nie Zhenzhao made in-depth and meticulous comments on each speech.
The second half was on for European and American modern and contemporary Literature. Scholars analyzed the connotation of modern and contemporary works in Europe and America from multiple perspectives. From the perspective of Chinese poetics, Prof. Gao Fen proposed that Yeats’s poem Lapis Lazuli shows a remarkable contrast between China and the West in terms of creative perception, artistic form and aesthetic value. Dr. Will Greenshields introduced the comments on him as a Western scholar on the acceptance of Western literary theory in China. Prof. Sui Hongsheng took his own research on masculinity as an example to explore the discipline consciousness in foreign literature research. Associate Prof. Sun Yanping analyzed the gentleman view in Thackeray’s novel Vanity Fair. Dr. Ivan Stacy explored the implications of “conspiracy” in Thomas Pynchon’s The Cry of Lot 49 (1966) and The BleedingEdge (2013). Associate Prof. Liu Yongqiang took Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s early work Das Glück am Weg as an example to discuss the coping strategies of literary creation after the “depth mode” of text reading was replaced by the “planarization” of visual images. Ms. Xu Chunying explored the metaphorical features of Dickinson’s poetry. Finally, Prof. Gao Fen made a refined comment on each speech.
In this Forum, scholars all demonstrated high academic level with broad visions, unique topics and rigorous argumentation. The commentators made a pertinent evaluation of each speech, which affirmed its research value and at the same time, pointed out the problems worthy of further exploration. Finally, Prof. Nie Zhenzhao made a concluding speech. He thought highly of the format of the seminar and the academic achievements of the participating teachers, encouraged interdisciplinary research, put forward new thinking on literary research methods, and raised ardent expectations for the development of foreign literature research.
Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies of School (CMRS) of School of International Studies, Zhejiang University
May 14, 2019
Written by Wang Aisu
Photos by Lin Weijian
Translated by Zhan Bingbing
Edited by Xu Xueying
