About Global China Humanities Series 全球中國人文講座
The Center launches its inaugural Global China Humanities Lecture Series in February 2021. We invite internationally renowned scholars and young, first-book authors to discuss their latest works on topics ranging from Cold War history, diaspora studies, global medicine to literature.
香港科技大學全球中國中心舉辦全新的人文講座系列。我們邀請國際知名的學者、剛推出首本著作的年青學人來探討冷戰史、離散研究、全球醫療史、文學史等等課題。
每次講座先由講者演講50-60分鐘，隨後有30分鐘的問答時間。講座免費，公眾人士均可報名參與，惟必須先報名。講座將以中文或英文進行。
GLOBAL CHINA HUMANITIES SERIES: Global Healing: Medical Humanities, Chinese Literature, and the World
Prof. Karen Thornber (Harvard)
7th April 2021 (Wed) 09:00 (HK), 6th April 2021 (Tue) 21:00 (EDT)
Language: English
Please REGISTER HERE to secure your place
Abstract:
Narratives from diverse communities globally have for millennia engaged with a broad variety of diseases and other serious health conditions. In more recent decades, many have advocated for empathic, compassionate, and respectful care that facilitates healing and enables wellbeing. In this presentation, grounded in my recent book Global Healing: Literature, Advocacy, Care, I’ll discuss the role of literature, and especially Chinese literature, in imploring societies to shatter the devastating social stigmas which prevent billions from accessing effective care; to increase the availability of quality person-focused healthcare; and to prioritize partnerships that facilitate healing and enable wellbeing for both patients and loved ones. I’ll also introduce the fields of the medical humanities and the health humanities and speak to the contributions the study of literature can make in this pandemic era.
About the speaker:
Professor Karen Thornber is the Harry Tuchman Levin Professor in Literature and Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. She is author of three major scholarly monographs: Global Healing: Literature, Advocacy, Care (Brill 2020, 700pp.); Ecoambiguity: Environmental Crises and East Asian Literatures (Michigan 2012, 700pp.); and Empire of Texts in Motion: Chinese, Korean, and Taiwanese Transculturations of Japanese Literature (Harvard 2009, 600pp.). Ecoambiguity and Empire of Texts in Motion both won multiple international awards. Prof. Thornber is also author of several (co)edited volumes and more than 70 articles/book chapters on a range of fields in literature and cultural history globally.