Glocal Online Forum on Foreign Literature and Comparative Literature (Hangzhou, China) 

By Candace Barrington

March 20, 2022

On 19 March 2022, Zhejiang University (Hangzhou, China) hosted the “Glocal Online Forum on Foreign Literature and Comparative Literature.” (“Glocal” is not a typo but a portmanteau formed from “global” and “local.”) Home to the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, the university conducted the entire event online because much of China is once again in full lockdown. The conference organizers had to limit the zoom participants to 40—we were told that having a Zoom account is a privilege available to only a few; most in China gain access to Zoom as users (rather than owners)—but we were told that it would be streamed to around 1000 attendees. 

After generous welcome speeches by three Zhejiang dignitaries—Dean Dong Yanping, Vice President He Lianzhen, and Xu Jun (a highly regarded translation theorist)—we posed for the requisite “group photo,” which in this pandemic era meant a screen shot with all video cameras on. This staid photo is my own screen shot of the speakers and organizers from earlier in the proceedings.  

I shared the English-language keynote session with Jean Howard (Columbia University) and Wang Ning (Shanghai Jiao Tong University). There was no Q&A; however, we did receive warm praise from our moderator, Prof. Guo Yingjian, for adhering to the time limit. Though this might seem like damning with faint praise, anyone who has organized a conference knows better. Staying within the prescribed time limit can be the hardest part of giving a talk. Our moderator clearly appreciated that all three of us made that effort, and I appreciate being recognized for my own effort.  

After the keynote session, the rest of the conference resumed in Mandarin Chinese, so the English speakers were invited to log off. Before I called it a night, I joined the streamed version. Wow! What a difference! Yang Hullin, the featured speaker, appeared in the lower right corner (in a very comfortably appointed room—no blue zoom background for him) with a written version of his talk scrolling and filling half of the screen. Encircling him and his script were multiple chats and animated images contributed by the session’s 800+ participants. This multimodal, colorful, and very busy screen turned the usual somber atmosphere of an academic conference to something akin to a Pachinko parlor. Occasionally, keywords would skip across the top; this screen shot captures “material turn.” I have no idea what was being said, but I am certain the conversations were lively.