As a key factor in the study of academic history, “scholar” is very important. The “Renaissance generation” of Chinese comparative literature refers to those who entered the academic world in the 1980s after the resumption of the college entrance examination in 1977, and later grew into the middle power of Chinese comparative literature; the average number of their books is generally higher than that of later scholars. As the first generation of comparative literature and world literature scholars who teach the history of foreign literature in the Chinese Department in the new era, their research is born with the vision of history and the consciousness of comparison, and they have a special preference for “academic history” and “relationship history” of literature; they also have a strong Chinese position and realistic consideration. In addition, quite a number of them have historically taken on the task of discipline construction in their respective colleges and departments. The personal study and research experience of Chen Jianhua, a researcher of Sino-Russian literature relations in East China Normal University, is of typical significance.
Professor Chen Jianhua has made significant achievements in the field of teaching and research of foreign literature. In the late 1970s, he stepped into the door of Russian literature research, and he continuously yielded fruitful results as long as the new world was opened up. Especially, the outcome of his “study on the relationship between Chinese literature and Russian literature” has uncovered the new chapter for the study of related areas. Based on it, he has continued to open up new fields and actively engaged in the construction of teaching materials on the history of foreign literature with the innovative ideas. On the perspective of academic history, he adheres to think on a series of important issues, such as the history of Russian-Soviet literature studies in China, the academic course of studies of foreign literature in China, and the study of academic history of Leo Tolstoy, and makes outstanding contributions to the promotion the development of foreign literature studies in China.
As a Chinese scholar of the academic circle Leo Tolstoy studies after the reform and opening up, Chen Jianhua has made significant achievements both in the study of Tolstoy’s creative works and in that of Tolstoy’s life in the perspective of comparative literature and academic history. His concepts of Tolstoy’s novels, such as “antipodes” and “the unity of subject participation and aesthetic distance,” have renovated the domestic academic circle’s understanding of Tolstoy’s novels in terms of the art of creative writing and characterization techniques. In the field of Sino-Russian literary relations, Chen Jianhua, with his broad vision and dialectical historical outlook, has sorted out the historical context of Tolstoy’s acceptance in our academic circles, comprehensively studied Tolstoy’s thought and aesthetics from the Chinese perspective, insightfully pointed out Tolstoy’s influence on the construction and development of Chinese culture, and constructed the image of this great writer as a whole in China. He is a scholar who has made significant contributions to the systematic study of Leo Tolstoy in China from these two aspects.
As a forerunner in the field of the academic history of foreign literature, Chen Jianhua constantly expanded the scope and explore deeply. In the first academic history of The Critical History of Russian-Soviet Literature Studies in China, he broke through the work summary mode of previous academic review and returned to the academic standard, showing a clear historical consciousness and broad academic vision. To the Academic History of Chinese Foreign Literature Research, he expanded the writing method from “works” as the center to a comprehensive and in-depth way to take into account “scholars”and “institutions,” and to discuss disciplinary methodology, unified literary phenomena and theoretical issues from multiple perspectives, it opened a broad space for follow-up research.
This article attempts to “defamiliarize” nearly 40 years Russian Literature Study by Prof. Chen Jianhua, and to summarize the text pattern of “Russian Literature as an Idea” since the 1980s in his Russian Literature Classics Study, Soviet Literature Study, Study of the relationship between Chinese literature and Russian literature as academic and disciplinary history, and literary educational as well. It places special emphasis on exploring the historical context in which contemporaries of Prof. Chen approached Russian Literature, the relationship between Chinese literature and Russian literature, in order to echo the spiritual connection between the new generation of Chinese scholars since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, to generate a kind of “dialogue and polyphony” effect with changes of times, and to enhance the genealogy of 20th century Chinese Humanistic Ideas.
This paper reviews Mr. Chen Jianhua’s academic activities from two aspects. One is Mr. Chen Jianhua’s academic pursuits, mainly introducing Mr. Chen Jianhua’s achievements in the study of Russian literature, the study of Sino-Russian literary relations and the academic history of Chinese foreign literature. The other is Mr. Chen Jianhua and the construction of Russian literature discipline at East China Normal University, mainly introducing: (1) Mr. Chen Jianhua’s teaching activities and discipline team building; (2) Mr. Chen Jianhua’s research on the history of discipline of Russian literature at East China Normal University; (3) How Mr. Chen Jianhua inherits the disciplinary tradition of Russian literature research at ECNU in foreign exchanges. Mr. Chen Jianhua’s academic activities and rigorous academic style have made outstanding contributions to the academic history of foreign literature and the construction of foreign literature disciplines in contemporary China.
Ten Lectures on Chinese-Russian Literary Relations is a new important book by famous Chinese scholar of Russian literature Professor Chen Jianhua. The monograph is valuable not only for deep analysis, thorough fact-checking and mas- sive data, but also for navigation instructions to all scholars, who are involved in the study of Russian-Chinese literary communication. This paper tries to mirror the analysis by Chen Jianhua of the perception of Russian literature in China in order to discuss the translations and study of Chinese literature in Russia. It has been discov- ered that though two countries strive to achieve certain balance in literary exchange, each of them not only demonstrates common tendencies, but also retains important differences.
Presentation, study, discussion, and examination of readers’ reports to publishers who employ them have been neglected. The reasons for this may have something to do with the fact that they are in publishing firms’ archives or in research libraries where authors’ actual manuscripts may well take priority. These reports provide insight into what publishers were looking for at the time, contemporary publishing estimations of the market, of what was sellable or not. They can also shed light on a writer’s earliest attempts at publication and what a publisher’s reader feels are strengths and weaknesses. This paper will present and discuss six reader’s reports on Stoppard’s early work authored by different hands employed by the London publishing firm of Faber and Faber. Frank Pike, who worked for Faber for more than forty years, is the reader for two of Stoppard’s plays: the play that made Stoppard name Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and Travesties; Nicola Croke comments on radio and television scripts, as do a report by an Australian Broadcasting Commission reader; a reissue of Stoppard’s one novel to date, Lord Malquist and Mr Moon is the subject of a report, by “JH” for Faber. The recommendations made by the readers following Pike’s awareness of Stoppard’s value as a writer and to Faber, reinforce Stoppard’s publishing status as a Faber commodity. The article also discusses the in-house reports in the light of subsequent critical reactions and concludes with reflections on the importance of publisher’s readers’ reports.
This article examines three film adaptations of Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile (1937), produced in 1978, 2004, and 2022, and will focus especially on the character of Salome Otterbourne. It will study how the character was being reimagined for each adaptation and how her ethical identity is constructed. The article will make sense of the different filmic recastings of Mrs Otterbourne as part of a process of moral revaluation, which entails her transformation from a minor character addicted to alcohol and rejected by Poirot as ethically aberrant. In the process, she is changed and ethically reinscribed, in the most recent film, from a writer of romance fiction into an empowered black blues singer, endowed with the ability to awaken feelings in the sleuth he had thought long dead.
