Title: Lin Yutang and Modern Shanghai: Professional Roles
Lecturer: QIAN Suoqiao (Chair Professor of Chinese Studies at Newcastle University in UK)
Chairperson: ZHANG Chuntian (Associate Professor, Department of Chinese Language and Literature, East China Normal University)
Date: 3:30pm, April 18th, 2019 (Thursday)
Venue: Room 3102, Building of School of Humanities, Minhang Campus, ECNU
Sponsor: Si-mian Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities, ECNU
Abstract of the Lecture:
Lin Yutang was arguably the quintessential “wenren,” or man of letters, of the so-called “Shanghai School” in 1930s Shanghai. During this period, he assumed several professional roles including English Secretary at Academia Sinica, English Professor at Soochow University, Chairman of the Liberal Cosmopolitan Club in Shanghai, Editor and Columnist for The China Critic, media director for “China Civil Liberties Union,” Editor-in-Chief for Lunyu, Renjianshi and Yuzhoufeng, Editor for Tian Hsia Monthly, and Consulting Editor for Xifeng. Using first-hand materials in both Chinese and English, this lecture will explore these various roles to demonstrate the bilingual (Chinese and English) and boundary-crossing (between Chinese and foreign communities in Shanghai) nature of Lin’s literary and cultural practices in 1930s Shanghai. It will highlight an important, yet hitherto much neglected, scene of “Shanghai School” and further enhance our understanding of Republican Shanghai in general.
Brief Introduction of the Lecturer:
Qian Suoqiao is Professor (Chair) of Chinese Studies at Newcastle University in UK. He received his BA in English at Beijing Foreign Studies University in 1985, and PhD in Comparative Literature at University of California, Berkeley in 1996. He has taught in several universities in China, US and Hong Kong before assuming the current position. His research focuses on Chinese modernity studies and cross-cultural studies between China and the West. He has many publications in both English and Chinese, including Lin Yutang and China’s Search for Modern Rebirth (2017) (with two Chinese versions: 《林语堂传：中国文化重生之道》) and The Little Critic: The Bilingual Essays of Lin Yutang (2012).
