East Asian Humanities Workshop: “Wu Mi’s Helen of Troy,” Yiqun Zhou

Date
Tue February 28th 2023, 4:30 - 6:00pm
Event Sponsor
East Asian Humanities Workshop, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures
Location
East Asia Library room 224
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Please join us for the final winter quarter of the East Asian Humanities Workshop’s winter quarter sessions. This workshop will feature Professor Yiqun Zhou, who will give a talk titled  "Wu Mi’s Helen of Troy". Professor Zhou is an Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures and, by Courtesy, of Classics at Stanford.  The talk will be followed by Q&A and discussion.

“Wu Mi’s Helen of Troy” 

Abstract: In 1933, Wu Mi 吳宓, a pioneer in Comparative Literature in China and a high-profile opponent of the New Culture Movement, published Helen of Troy (海倫曲), a pentasyllabic ancient-style poem of 112 lines narrating the Greek myth of the titular heroine. In form and content, this poem is unique in the literary history of modern China. This talk examines the significance of Helen of Troy from two perspectives: (1) ongoing scholarly efforts to rewrite modern Chinese literary history by questioning the long-standing assumption that poetry written in the new vernacular became the only legitimate poetic form following the New Culture Movement, and (2) Wu Mi's major role in modern Chinese conservatism and in the formation of Comparative Literature as a discipline in modern China.