Abstract:
This presentation will provide a comprehensive overview of text-paratext symbiotic narratology, elucidating its concepts, narrative communication situations, and critical frameworks. The three autobiographies of Frederick Douglass, which are considered classics of American slave narratives, will be examined and analyzed through the lens of text-paratext symbiotic narratology, thus uncovering the unique role and significance of text-paratext symbiotic relation, and how it contributes to a deeper understanding and interpretation of textual works.

Biography:

Professor Xu Dejin is the Dean of the School of Foreign Languages at Sun Yat-sen University. He obtained his Ph.D. in Literature from Peking University. He is granted the Distinguished Scholar of Sun Yat-sen University and was awarded the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University and the Hundred Talents Program for Young Social Scientists in Beijing. He also serves as the director of China Foreign Language Bureau’s Innovation Base for Foreign Discourse, the distinguished researcher at the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Development Institute of China Top Think Tanks, and the chairman of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau University Foreign Language and Literature Union. Up till now he has published over 60 articles in leading academic journals around the world, authored four books, translated seven books, and edited more than 20 textbooks (10 of which were selected for the National Twelfth Five-Year Plan). He has hosted (including completed) two projects funded by the National Social Science Fund of China and eight provincial and ministerial projects.