Toming, an English professor from California State University, Los Angeles, U.S.A., gave two academic lectures respectively on October 23rd and 24th in School of Foreign Languages. On the afternoon of October 23rd, Professor Toming gave the first lecture entitled A Fugue of Modernities. In his lecture, Professor Toming thoroughly studied modernity in its original cultural background and concluded that modernity is not a single thinking system in response to Enlightenment, but a polyphonic structure with polysemy and polyphony, just like fugue in the music. By analyzing works of Gustave Flaubert, Charles Baudelaire, Walter Benjamin, Dostoevsky, Franz Kafka, etc., Professor Toming thought that literature plays a very crucial role in the development of the fugue structure of modernity and that modern European history (including literary history) is of great reference significance to China’s modernization.
On the afternoon of October 24th, Professor Toming made the second lecture themed “Intertextuality”. In his lecture, he first introduced the origin and the development of the intertextuality theory, recognizing French theorist Kristeva’s pioneering contribution in the very field. Then he elaborated the advantages and disadvantages of Roland Barthes’ intertextuality theory. Later, he talked about famous American scholar Bruce’s great contribution to the development of this theory and the influence of feminism and post-colonialism on it. Being knowledgeable and sharp-minded, Professor Toming analyzed and expounded his views in an unique and accessible way. The teachers and students present greeted the two brilliant lectures with warm applause. At the end of each lecture, Professor Toming had a further communication with the audience from School of Foreign Languages and replied their questions.