The Institute for Advanced Research in Humanities and Social Sciences, in collaboration with the Department of Chinese, and the Institute of Taiwanese Literature, will invite Academy Sinica member David Wang Der-Wei to give two lectures as part of their humanities talk series. .

The first lecture will take place on December 27th in the Conference Room of The College of Liberal Arts. David Wang’s topic will be “1905, 1955, 2005—The Dynamics and Statics in Hundred Years’ Chinese Literature”, focusing on the historical periods of 1905, 1955, and 2005, and delving into the tortuous path that Chinese literature has taken in its development. David Wang maintains that the modernity of Chinese literature cannot be defined by any particular period, formula, creation or reader group,. Rather, the meaning of modernity lies not in the presentation of internal truth, but in the continual positioning of historical coordinates. Only when we outmaneuver the multiplicity facet of timing in modernity, can we continue to move on , and dissolve the mysterious charm of “modernity.”

The second lecture will take place in the morning of December 29th in the International Conference Room of the Main Library. The topic of the lecture will be “Lyric Voices in the Epic Period—The Music and Poems of Chiang Wen-yeh”. In this lecture, David Wang integrates Chiang Wen-yeh music and poems, and puts them in the context of “the initial period of modern Chinese literature in the broad sense.”Basically, he reviews what constitutes as the most potent, and most wonderful part of the lyric tradition in Chinese literature, and from a broader perspective of the history of literature and culture reevaluates the significance of Chiang Wen-yeh.