On the morning of October 16th, Prof. Zhu Guohua from East China Normal University was invited to the College of Foreign Languages of Nankai University to give an academic report titled “An Alternative Thought Experiment: Re-reading Regret for the Past” to all the teachers and students of the college.
Prof. Zhu is the dean of the School of International Chinese studies at East China Normal University, editor-in-chief of Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art, vice-president of Chinese Association for Theory of Literary and Art, as well as member ofthe Ministry of Education’s Steering Committee on the Teaching of Chinese Language in Higher Educational Institutions. He was selected as a member in the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in Universities of the Ministry of Education of China and Shanghai Pujiang Program. Prof. Zhu also serves as a visiting scholar at Duke University and the École normale supérieure. His representative works include The Cultural Logic of Power: An Illustration of Bourdieu's Sociological Poetics, The Thought of The Crowd, and so on. He was awarded the second prize of the Outstanding Achievement Award of the Ministry of Education, and the outstanding award of Baogang Outstanding Teacher Award, etc.
At the beginning of the meeting, a speech was delivered by Prof. Yan Guodong, the dean of the College of Foreign Languages. Faculty and students from the Research Center for Foreign Literature, English, Russian, and Translation departments, and the School of Literature, all participated in this academic event.
In the lecture, Prof. Zhu Guohua firstly analyzed the feasibility of re-reading Regret for the Past through the new perspective of “thought experiment”, and then systematically explained how Lu Xun expressed his thoughts on “the possibility of individualism in China” in Regret for the Past. According to Prof. Zhu, “the characteristics of thought experiment in Regret for the Past lies first and foremost in the depth of its thought, for it taking love as a metaphor to discuss the abstract ideas Lu Xun concerned about in his youth, and this is the issue of the possibility of individualism in China.” Prof. Zhu pointed out that Regret for the Past indicates a certain perspective for us to re-understand literary works with thought experiments, i.e., literature of thought experiments should not be limited to genres such as science fiction or anti-utopia novels, but should provide a certain kind of representations for us to re-understand issues that we have been inattentive to and taken for granted.
In the Q&A session, Prof. Zhu gave wonderful answered numerous questions from the attendees.The event is a great inspiration to the attendees and ended with their applause.
