Source: Department of Chinese
Written by: Zhang Shiyang
Edited by: Wang Dongmei

On August 20-22, the 11th Seminar on Chinese Literature was held at Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU) in Guangzhou. Fifteen teachers and students from Department of Chinese Literature, Sun Yat-sen University in Kaohsiung joined teachers and students in Department of Chinese, SYSU to discuss issues on Chinese Literature.

At the opening ceremony on the morning of August 21, Prof. Chen Chunsheng, Executive Deputy Secretary and Vice President of SYSU, highly praised the academic exchanges between the Department of Chinese at SYSU and the Department of Chinese Literature at Sun Yat-sen University in Kaohsiung in the past more than ten years. Prof. Huang Tianji from Department of Chinese at SYSU compared the two universities to “twins”: both are named after Dr. Sun Yat-sen, both have the same school motto, and the faculty and students of both universities work and study under the inspiration of Dr. Sun Yat-sen. Prof. Huang Hsin-ya, Dean of College of Liberal Arts at Sun Yat-sen University in Kaohsiung, hoped to expand more forms of exchange and cooperation between the two departments. Prof. Li Wei, Head of Department of Chinese at SYSU, wished the seminar a great success in his welcoming speech.

Forty-two academic papers were presented in this year’s seminar, covering Ancient Literature, Modern Literature, Comparative Literature, Literary Theory, Philology, Exegetics, Dialectology, Grammar, Religious Studies, Folklore, Study of Confucian Classics, Historiography, etc.

The exchanges between the two departments started in early 1990s. SYSU was among the first group of universities in mainland China to have academic exchanges with universities in Taiwan. The Seminar on Chinese Literature has been held 11 times.

This year marks the 90th anniversary of the founding of Sun Yat-sen University. The academic exchanges between the two departments are rooted in the desire for mutual understanding and the mission of inheriting and carrying forward Chinese culture.