Speaker:
Professor Sheldon LU 魯曉鵬 (UC Davis)
Moderator:
Dr. Geng SONG 宋耕 (HKU)
Date: Wednesday, August 30, 2023
Time: 11:00 am – 12:30 pm (Hong Kong Time)
Venue: CRT-7.30, 7/F, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU
Language: English
This lecture traces the origins, development, and ramifications of two influential discourses in contemporary Chinese literary and film studies: a “Chinese school of comparative literature” and a “Chinese school of film.” While the former originated in the 1970s and continues to the present, the latter has emerged in recent years. There are similarities between the two. The lecture offers an assessment of the possible strengths and contributions of these ideas and also points out their theoretical inconsistency and blind spots. While such discourses attempt to rightfully overcome Eurocentric tendencies and promote indigenous traditions in academia, they create a new set of problems and dilemmas at the same time.
Sheldon Lu is Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of California at Davis where he has served as Department Chair of Comparative Literature, Director of Graduate Program of Comparative Literature, and Founding Co-Director of Film Studies. He is the author, editor, and co-editor of some 15 books in English and Chinese on comparative literature, Chinese literature, and films studies. His recent books include Contemporary Chinese Cinema and Visual Culture: Envisioning the Nation (2021); Lyric Poetry and Solidarity Society in Hong Kong in the 1950s 一九五〇年代香港詞壇與堅社 (2022, in Chinese); and Ecology and Chinese-Language Cinema: Reimagining a Field (2020, co-editor).
This seminar is presented by the School of Chinese with the support of the Center for the Study of Globalization and Cultures, Department of Comparative Literature, The University of Hong Kong.

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