On April 8th 2015, the opening ceremony for the “Research Center for British and Irish Literature” was held in the conference hall 515 in the School of Foreign Languages (SOFL) at Hunan Normal University. The launching ceremony was hosted by Liao Guang, President of SOFL, with attendance of professor Jerusha McCormack from University College Dublin (currently a guest professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University); Professor John Blair from University of Geneva (western chairperson of the International Association for Comparative Study of China and the West, IACSCW”); Jiang Hongxin, vice-president of Hunan Normal university; Tangjian Wen, president of the International Exchange Division; and Deng Lingying, president of School of Foreign Languages.

Jiang Hongxin placed high hopes on the research center and expected it to play a part in the internationalization of the university and in the cultural exchanges between China and Britain and Ireland.

Professor McCormack elaborated on the similarities and differences of the current conditions between China and Ireland and her own story with China. She also illustrated, with examples of Yeats’s Chinese poems, and the comparability between James Joyce and Lu Xun, the basis and outlook of Irish studies in China and Chinese studies in Ireland.

 Cao Bo, director of the newly established center, presented congratulatory letters from the Embassy of Ireland in China and the Irish Studies Center of Beijing Foreign Studied University.

After the launching ceremony, Professor McCormack and Professor Blair gave a speech on “comparative studies on Chinese and western culture: reasons and measures”.

Research Center for British and Irish Literature is affiliated with the national key discipline of English Language and Literature led by Jiang Hongxin, and it aims to carry out in-depth studies in British and Irish literature, facilitating culture exchanges between China and Britain and Ireland.