From May 18th to 19th, International Conference on World Literature: Roots and Routes was successfully held at School of Foreign Studies of Tongji University. Prof. Yongqi LOU, Vice President of Tongji, was invited to deliver a speech. The conference mainly revolved around plenary presentations by experts, young scholar forum, panel discussions, etc. More than one hundred scholars from China and other countries such as the United States, Britain, South Africa gathered here to share their cutting-edge achievements on world literature.
Prof. Yongqi LOU affirmed the important role of School of Foreign Studies of Tongji in serving national development strategies, enhancing Sino-foreign friendship and promoting world harmony over the past century. Especially in the new era, the School responds to the call of the CPC as well as our country, actively serving the national strategies. Over these years, it has demonstrated foresight and initiative in exploring new academic fields and education paths, thus injecting a strong impetus to the development of liberal arts at Tongji and the international dissemination of Chinese discourse.
The leadership of SFS made an in-depth interpretation of the two conference keywords roots and routes, hoping that this conference could serve as a platform for connecting Chinese scholars with the international academic communities, thus promoting academic exchanges on literature and various civilizations in literary research. Through plenary presentations and panel discussions, the participating scholars probed into the interaction between local literature works and global modernization. It is agreed that literature works from all over the world have brought together experience and thoughts in the process of modernization. The topics of social change, cultural identity, development narratives and ecological crises have provided valuable resources for the construction of China's discourse system in the new era. Thanks to digitalization, the study of world literature is taking on a new look. It can deeply explore the multidimensional value of literature works in intercultural communication, and help mankind to draw an overall picture of the world history of literature and culture.