On the afternoon of November 5th, the School of Foreign Languages held a lecture titled "The Controversy between Historicism and Currentism in Literary Studies: A Case Study of Contemporary Shakespeare Review" in the third hall of its north building. Professor Zhang Chong is a doctoral supervisor of Xiamen University. The postgraduate students of the School of Foreign Languages attended the lecture. The lecture was hosted by Professor Gao Jihai of the School of Foreign Languages.
At the beginning of the lecture, Professor Zhang briefly introduced the concepts of historicism and currentism to everyone, and he pointed out that both were theoretical theories. As regards historicism, Professor Zhang started with the “routines” of literary research that we are “familiar with” and talked about the current criteria for judging literary works. He believed that under the guidance of historicism, literary works should be faithful. In addition, history is selective which may change over time, so we must be objective to history. Professor Zhang mentioned that scholars inacademic circles argue that historicism can only explain why literary works is constructed in such a way, but cannot explain whether literary works are still meaningfulnow, and currentism provides theories and methods for this problem. Professor Zhang believes that it is not advisable to look at historical figures and events with today’s moral values and pointed out that currentism is not "revising the oldto knowthe new", but "rewriting the old for the new",in which we study the original literary phenomenon with a new observation mirrorand it is more important to learn from history to deal with the present problems. Later, Professor Zhang took Shakespeare's works "King Lear", "Othello", "Cymbeline" and "Charlie III" as examples to illustrate the values and significances of Shakespeare's works in modern times under the guidance of currentism theory.
At the end of the lecture, Professor Zhang pointed out that historicism and currentism are not an either-or relationship. It’s different concerns that led to different methods and cognition.He emphasized the significance of research on currentism and hoped that currentism can solve our current problems. This is conducive to us regaining and inheriting the classics. Professors and students expressed that they had benefited a lot and had a lively discussion on historicism and currentism afterwards.
The complete success of this lecture helped students deepen their understanding of historicism and currentism, presented a new perspective and provided new ideas and directions for students' comprehension of literary works.
