Lecture by Prof. Zhang Shuying on the Writing of Travel Literature-深圳大学外国语学院

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Lecture by Prof. Zhang Shuying on the Writing of Travel Literature

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From 10:00 to 12:00 on the morning of March 15th, Professor Zhang Shuying, from the Department of Foreign Languages of National Taiwan University, delivered a lecture entitled “Wandering, Exiling, Traveling: On the Writing of Travel Literature” in the Meeting Room 1200 of Wenke Building. With the atmosphere convivial and the lecture contents rich and fascinating, the whole meeting room was packed out.

At the beginning of the lecture, Professor Zhang elaborated on the types of travel literature, such as diaries represented by The Travels of Marco Polo and Columbus’ Diary, travelogues, chronicles on colonization, and Grand Tour of European romantic literati (Goethe, Keats, Shelley, Merimee, etc.). Developed from the Grand Tour, local writing is comprised of travel of the 20th century and imaginary travel, the former of which consists of migration, exile, trips, overseas study, migration for work, and sightseeing tours, while the latter centers on dreams, homesickness, and separation. During the lecture, Professor Zhang spiced her elaboration with Spanish and famous Spanish songs. Besides, she afterwards introduced a great many theories concerning travel literature: 1) the ones from Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism by Benedict Anderson and from Orientalism by Edward W. Said, 2) nomadic theory from Contact Zone, 3) the ones from Roam and Ironweed, and 4) the ones from Wandering Geography. In the end, one of the types of travel literature, picaresque literature, was mentioned. Thereinto, writers Sanmao, Camilo José Cela, Rafael Alberti and Xu Zhongpei and their works were emphasized, such as Recollection of Spain by Xu, Stories of the Sahara by Sanmao, Sonrie China by Alberti, and Viaje A La Alcarria by Cela. When speaking of Sanmao, Professor Zhang recalled the phenomena of “Sanmao Hot” in her youth and the song Olive written by Sanmao and sung by Qi Yu together with us.

(2018/3/15 Hu Xiuting)

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