The Third International Summit Dialogue and Forum was held at Beijing Normal University
Author: Judy Views： DATE:2017-04-14 10:32:20
Sponsored by School of Chinese Language and Literature at Beijing Normal University, The Third International Summit Dialogue and Forum was held at Beijing Normal University on October 16th 2015 with professor Fang Weigui, a Changjiang Scholar from BNU, as its convener. It included a Dialogue between the leading figures in the relative spheres, and a forum. The theme “What Is World Literature? Tension between the Local and the Universal” was discussed thoroughly by the scholars from America, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Slovakia, Korea, as well as China Mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao.
In the Dialogue, David Damrosch, Ernest Bernbaum Professor and Chair, director of the Institute for World Literature shared his arguments on the relationship between “world literature” and “national construction” in different ages, advocating the “world literature” with real world-wide reception by readers, urging all the scholars to notice both the cultural intrusion and the limits of regional thinking in the process of the interaction between the two. Zhang Longxi, chair professor of Comparative Literature and Translation at City University of Hong Kong, affirmed the positive effects of the revitalization of “world literature” and its unique strength—offering a better context for the world-wide reception of the non-western literary works. He believed that scholars should go further in interpreting and studying the canons from “minor cultural traditions” besides the translation of them, and only by this way can world literature enjoy the real vitality.
In the comment section, Lu Jiande, director of the Institute of Literature at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, emphasized the importance of the topic presented in Professor Damrosch’s lecture and illustrated the tension between “the Local and the Universal” with the reaction taken by the Chinese intellectuals at the turn of 19th and 20th century. Martin Kern, chair professor of East Asian Studies at Princeton University, showed his admiration on Professor Zhang Longxi’s positions, reiterated that national canons should be a part of world literature and exchanged the opinions on the ways of translating and interpreting the canons with Professor Zhang.
At the Forum on next day, a round-table conference was held. The scholars and participants from different cultural backgrounds shared their innovative research results or methods with each other. It is noteworthy that some pairs of paradoxical concepts such as ethnical cultures and global ethics, zonal experience and world awareness, national sake and international fair…received common attention at the Forum. It was such same academic interests and humanism that served as the base for further communication for all the scholars. And the arguments, opinions from them collided, interweaved, and fused with each other, so that it showed us a miniature of the world literature study.