Dear Professors and Students,

We would like to cordially invite you to attend the following Lecture and Documentary by PROFESSOR ZHANG LONGXI (CUHK/ Hunan Normal University).

PROFESSOR ZHANG LONGXI (CUHK/ Hunan Normal University)

Date: December 6, 2023
Time: 3:00pm
Venue: E4-G053 – University of Macau

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE: BETWEEN WORLDS

Comparative literature was established in 19th-century Europe with its disciplinary emphasis on the command of different languages and literatures beyond the limitations of nationalist tendencies and their correlative monolingualism. However, until recently, the languages and literatures in the purview of comparative literature were all European, making the discipline almost inevitably Eurocentric. It is in our time with an increasingly strong sense of globalization and the necessity of transcending Eurocentrism that comparative literature has gradually shifted its focus on non-European literary traditions, particularly in East-West comparative studies and studies of the Global South. As a comparatist deeply believing in the value of cross-cultural understanding of all literary and cultural traditions, I have been engaged in East-West studies and worked toward the cosmopolitan vision of treating the world’s literatures as all potentially making contributions to what we can proudly call human culture. The realization of such a vision is possible in our time and it is the task of all comparatists to make it happen, which will have important implications for the world we are living in today.

After the lecture by Professor ZHANG LONGXI, a 40-minute documentary about his work, directed by Prof. João Cezar de Castro Rocha (UERJ, UMDVS), will be shown, followed by a debate moderated by Prof. Castro Rocha.

Prof. ZHANG LONGXI has authored numerous books including World Literature as Discovery. Expanding the World Literary Canon (2024, Routledge), A History of Chinese Literature (2023, Routledge), From Comparison to World Literature (2015, State University of New York Press), Mighty Opposities: From Dichotomies to Differences in the Comparative Study of China (1998, Stanford),The Tao and the Logos: Literary Hermeneutics, East and West (1992, Duke). He was President of the International Comparative Literature Association for 2016-2019. With David Damrosch, Theo D’haen and Francesca Orsini, he serves as an Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of World Literature.