School of Humanities and Languages of UNSW
Prof Li Yi
4:15 – 5:45pm, Tue 3 Oct, 2017
Morven Brown 310, UNSW
One of the main historical contexts in the development of modern Chinese literature was the Republican era in China. To consider modern Chinese literature as part of Republican cultural history is however a new and challenging direction in the field. The concept of Republican Literature has opened up new horizons in Chinese literary studies. This presentation will focus on its current development in three directions: 1) the effort to define it in order to re-conceive modern Chinese literary history; 2) re-locating the “old-style” and “popular” as well as other literary developments outside the framework of “New Literature” as modern literary genres; 3) an attempt to return to the site of its formation — tracing and analysing its particular developments in the context of Republican social and cultural history.
Professor Li Yi is Changjiang Distinguished Scholar and Professor of Modern Chinese Literature at the Beijing Normal University. He is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Studies in Modern Chinese Culture and Literature. His main research interest is in the area of modern Chinese literary history, its conceptual and cultural development, the study of Lu Xun (1881-1936), as well as modern Chinese poetry and poetics. Professor Li has published numerous books and articles in these areas and in recent years he has become a prominent proponent of new concepts such as “Republican-era Literature,” which have recently become major subjects of interest and in debate in Chinese literary studies.