4 pm, Tuesday, April 17, in 102 Weaver Building

Prof. Zhang Longxi

Prof. Zhang received in Ph. D. from Harvard University and is Chair Professor of Comparative Literature and Translation at the City University of Hong Kong. His main interest is in East-West comparative studies of literature and culture. His major publications include The Tao and the Logos: Literary Hermeneutics, East and West (Duke, 1992); Mighty Opposites: From Dichotomies to Differences in the Comparative Study of China (Stanford, 1998); Allegoresis: Reading Canonical Literature East and West (Cornell, 2005); and Unexpected Affinities: Reading across Cultures (Toronto, 2007).

Lecture Abstract

The convertibility of poison and medicine is an old idea in the Chinese tradition; that idea is discussed in the Song dynasty Chinese writer Shen Kuo’s (1031-1095) Mengxi bitan and several other Chinese texts. By exploring the ambivalence of poison and medicine in Shen Kuo and the other Chinese texts, this lecture discusses the conceptualization of the human body and the medical treatment of the body, the dialectic of remedy and poison, understood figuratively or allegorically, and finally leads to an innovative reading of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. By exploring the theme in different literary traditions, the lecture tries to show the unexpected affinities among texts and ideas across cultures East and West.