Prof. Zhao Baisheng

Summer Semester 2005

Illustration

Zhao Baisheng is Chair of the Institute of World Literature and Secretary General for the Cross-Cultural Studies at the University of Peking. His publications include Theory of Auto/Biography (2003). From 24 June to 30 July, Professor Zhao Baisheng was guest professor of the Center for Intercultural Studies at Mainz. He was affiliated with the new Department of English and Linguistics (Seminar für Englische Philologie and Institut für Allgemeine und Vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft) and offered a seminar and a series of lectures.

Seminar: Cross-culturalism – Toward a World Literature and Culture (Blockveranstaltung)
June-July 2005
This seminar explored the complex mechanism of the East-West border crossing and its cultural conse-quences. Such processes and movements as immigration, colonization, Westernization, Marxianization, globalization were examined to demonstrate the ongoing shaping of a World Literature and Culture. The core texts included fictional works and life writings by Daniel Defoe, T. S. Eliot, Hu Shi, Patrick White, V. S. Naipaul, J. M. Coetzee, Maxine Hong Kingston.

Lecture Series
July 2005
1. Westernization: Reinterpreting the Intercultural Mission of 20th-Century China
2. Americanizing the Chinese Mind: A Case Study of Yung Wing and Hu Shi
3. Why Fa Mu Lan and Kwan Kung? On the Importance of Violence in Chinese American Literature
4. Please Quote Das Kapital: Marxism with Chinese Characteristics
5. China in Media: East and West