Faculty and Students from SEIS Attend High-End Forum on Irish Literature from the Perspective of Area and Country Studies
On 20 December 2025, the High-Level Forum on Irish Literature from the Perspective of Area and Country Studies was successfully held in Guangzhou. The event was hosted by the Irish Studies Centre of the Faculty of English Language and Culture at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies (GDUFS). At the opening ceremony, Professor He Chuantian, Vice President of GDUFS, and Professor Wu Zhuang, Vice Dean of the Faculty of English Language and Culture, delivered welcome remarks.
The keynote sessions were chaired by Professor Li Yuan from GDUFS and Professor Qin Hong from Shanghai Theatre Academy. Professor Zhang Jian, editor-in-chief of Foreign Literature, delivered a keynote speech entitled “The Self-Positioning of the ‘Postcolonial Poet’ in Seamus Heaney’s Poetry”. By comparing Heaney with Caribbean postcolonial poet Derek Walcott, he examined the distinctive ways in which Heaney positions himself as a postcolonial poet and revealed the poet’s profound reflections on cultural colonization and national identity, offering new perspectives on Heaney’s intellectual world. Professor Chen Li, Director of the Irish Studies Centre at the School of English, presented a keynote lecture on “Generic Innovation and Historical Reflection in Contemporary Irish Biographical Novels”. She argued that contemporary Irish biographical fiction uncovers alternative historical truths and constructs multi-dimensional literary personae, thereby resisting over-simplified grand narratives of history. In doing so, such works play an important role in cultural intervention, reflect Irish literature’s ongoing engagement with history, and provide significant literary pathways for reshaping national identity.
Subsequent keynote speeches were delivered by Professor Dai Congrong from the Institute for Global Humanities at Nanjing University, Professor Li Chengjian, Party Secretary of the School of Foreign Languages at Southwest Jiaotong University, Professor Cao Bo, Director of the British and Irish Centre at Hunan Normal University, and Professor Feng Wei from the School of Foreign Languages at Shandong University. Their talks further broadened the academic dialogue between Irish literature and area and country studies from multiple perspectives.
In the afternoon, the forum continued with five parallel panels. At the panel on “Writing the Irish Diaspora”, Zhang Junhan from the Irish Studies Centre presented on “The Irish Great Famine on Screen: Memory Politics, Historical Representation, and the Reconstruction of National Identity”, focusing on the fluidity and openness of national narratives in the era of globalization. Doctoral candidates from the Irish Studies Centre — Jiang Yiling, Liu Yukun, and Chen Sichang — reported on their ongoing research in papers titled “The Aesthetics of Mobility and Cosmopolitan Imagination in Elizabeth Bowen”, “The Emergence of Irish Cosmopolitanism in James Joyce’s Dubliners”, and “Voices Against the Celtic Tiger: Globalization in Contemporary Irish Women’s Drama”, respectively.
The forum concluded in a warm and intellectually engaging atmosphere. Guided by the overarching framework of area and country studies, it fostered a cross-disciplinary dialogue on Irish literature that combined historical depth with a global outlook, and showcased cutting-edge explorations and innovative dynamism in theories, methods, and research topics in this evolving field.
