04/08/2026
Melbourne Irish Studies Seminar Series
August 12, 2026
4. 30pm. Melbourne time
Jabiru Room, Newman College
Swanston St, Parkville
Wu Qingjun, Professor of English Literature, China Foreign Affairs University, Beijing, China
"Diasporic Reconstruction of Narrative Traditions in James Joyce and Lin Yutang"
Diasporic literature comprises works composed away from authors’ homelands. Many such texts grapple with identity negotiation, cultural hybridity, nostalgia and alienation; other diasporic writers centre indigenous cultural heritage to reach international readers. James Joyce (1882–1942) represents the former tendency, while Lin Yutang (1895–1976) exemplifies the latter. Both spent decades living abroad and produced major works in English, drawing core motifs from their respective national storytelling traditions. However, their aesthetic strategies diverge drastically: Joyce subverts Irish narrative forms including the aisling to lay bare colonial cultural wounds, crafting a vision of Ireland defined by “scrupulous meanness”. By contrast, Lin revitalizes classical Chinese historiographic commentary within English prose to convey authentic “Chineseness” to Anglophone audiences, as demonstrated in Moment in Peking. This paper compares their narrative constructions of national traditions and analyses how their distinct stylistic modes shape cross-cultural reception.
Wu Qingjun, professor of literature at the Department of English, China Foreign Affairs University. His research focuses mainly on Irish literature and British novels. His latest research focuses on overseas Chinese writings, translation of Chinese literature, and comparative studies of Irish diasporic literature.
As a visiting scholar, he has visited Cambridge University (UK), Zurich James Joyce Foundation (Switzerland), Leeds University (UK), Tulsa University (USA), and Trinity College Dublin (Ireland). His publised writings include: Writing Cities: Spaces in English Novels.Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2024.
National Identity in Irish Literature.Beijing: People’s Publishing House,2023.
Spatial Writing in Modern English Novels. Tianjin: Nankai University Press, 2016.
Ulysses: A Study of Its Narrative Art. Beijing: Beijing Institute of Technology Press,2006.
This seminar will be live streamed via zoom:
Join Zoom Meeting
https://victoriauniversity.zoom.us/j/86006316643?pwd=xpfAEcN0g34np2AkJP9qTNV0VhoU5Z.1
Meeting ID: 860 0631 6643
Passcode: 235785
http://isaanz.org/events/miss-seminars/
As always this is a free public seminar open to every one.
It starts at 4.30pm Jabiru Room at Newman College, Swanston St, Carlton.
MISS co-convenors:
Philip Bull (La Trobe University)
Frances Devlin-Glass (Deakin University)
Dianne Hall (Victoria University)
Ronan McDonald, (University of Melbourne)
MELBOURNE IRISH STUDIES SEMINARSAn Inter-University Forum for Irish and Irish-Australian Studies MISS has returned to Newman College, in the Jabiru Room in the Academic Centre, while also providing…
