Enhancing planetary ecological consciousness through joint symposium

The delegation attended a joint academic symposium at Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa Massey University to discuss “Cultural Communication: Literature, Creative Writing, and Communication Across Borders”.

Head of the School of Humanities, Media and Creative Communication (HMCC) Professor Kerry Taylor says it was a great honour to receive the leading academics.

“The CASS Institute of Literature is ranked first in China for literary studies, and these are some of their top scholars. We feel very privileged to have been the only university they visited in Aotearoa New Zealand, and to have been able to meet and share ideas over three full days. It was an intellectually rich and academically stimulating exchange.”

During the symposium, CASS’s Deputy Director of the Institute of Literature Professor Rao Wanjing gave an overview of the impact of Chinese literature globally, including revealing the rapidly increasing market value in recent years of Chinese online literature "going global". In 2023, online sales of Chinese literature exceeded NZ$930 million, with 620,000 original works and 2.3 billion overseas readers.

CASS presenter Professor Tian Meilian spoke of the growing interest in new forms of ecological fiction among Chinese women writers, while HMCC creative writing lecturer Dr Thom Conroy discussed planetisation during his presentation on his new collection of short speculative fiction, Any Moment Now.

It was the first time CASS scholars have visited Massey and followed on from a trip to CASS in Beijing last year by Professor Elspeth Tilley of the School of Humanities, Media and Creative Communication. During their time in Wellington, the delegation was taken on a tour of Zealandia Te Māra a Tāne, the world’s first fully fenced urban ecosanctuary.

“We chose to explore this important ecological project together to reflect the scholarly interests at both CASS and Massey in understanding shared environmental values through ecological literatures,” says Professor Tilley.

“Planetisation was indeed the theme of the whole visit. We discovered a great deal of overlap in terms of how our literatures are responding to ecological issues through ecocriticism and speculative climate fiction.”

The visit concluded with a meeting chaired by Professor Taylor to consider future collaboration pathways. The delegation spent the afternoon at Mansfield House, exploring the birthplace of New Zealand’s best-known writer, Katherine Mansfield, who is an important figure in terms of literary connections between China and New Zealand.

The CASS delegates were Professor Rao Wangjing (Deputy Director of the Institute of Literature), Professor Liu Ning (Director of the Department of Classical Literature Studies of the Institute of Literature, and Vice President of the Chinese Association of Literature of the Tang Dynasty), Professor Tian Meilian (Deputy Director of the Department of Contemporary Literary Studies and Deputy Director of the Women’s Committee in the World Association for Chinese Literatures), Professor Cheng Kai (Deputy Director of the Department of Modern Literary Studies and Standing Director of the Modern Chinese Literature Research Association), Associate Professor Wang Bei (specialist in Comparative Literary Studies), and Associate Professor Li Ke (Editor of the Literary Heritage academic journal).