Telephone number:	+31 (0)71 527 2066
E-Mail:	e.chen@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Faculty / Department:	Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen, Institute for Cultural Disciplines, Literatuurwetenschap
Office Address:	Witte Singel-complex van Wijkplaats 2 2311 BX Leiden Room number 1.06a
Personal Homepage:	www.westlaker.org

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Research

Metamorphosis as a universal motif in Western and Oriental literature. Metamorphosis, the title of Ovid’s ancient canon and Kafka’s modern classic, becomes fascinating when placed side by side with Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, a Chinese counterpart created by Pu Songling three centuries ago. This motif is apparently widely shared and everlastingly inherited in world literature. Why? What can we read from the agony (or ecstasy) intertwined in the process of shape-shifting? How do Oriental texts differ from or resonate with the Western corpus in the narration and position of metamorphoses? Where can this literary fantasy between nature and humanity lead us in this globalised but ecocrisis-prone age? These are some of the many questions I am pondering before organising the answers into a convincing ‘manifesto’.

Curriculum Vitae

I was brave enough to make two major shifts in the research fields of Literature, from Literary Translation (BA thesis ‘“Folding and Unfolding” Techniques in Literary Translation’, June 2000) to English Fiction (MPhil thesis ‘On Trollopian Realism’, December 2002), and then to Literary Theory, the much wider domain in which I am currently engaged. If the previous two degrees in Arts obtained in Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China can be regarded as two steps closer to the soul of literature in general, pursuing a doctorate in cross-cultural Europe was my decisive step towards a richer vision and a broader perspective.

Personal note: Literally in Dutch, the title of Dr (Doctor) is merely one letter removed from Drs (Master), but it takes years of effort to delete that letter.

Publications

“The Way We Live Now” – Anthony Trollope and the England in Industrialization’, in: A Collection of Essays from the Eighth Biennial National Foreign Literature Conference, Changsha(CN) 2007 (forthcoming).

Lifeguard (a novel by James Patterson), trans., Zhejiang Literature and Art Press, Hangzhou (CN) April 2006.

‘A Pragmatic Analysis of Hear Roles in “Wilderness”’, in: Foreign Language Journal, Harbin (CN) May 2003.

‘Scavenger Bird’ and ‘Mourning Door’ (two short stories by Elizabeth Graver), trans., in: World Literature, Beijing (CN) May 2003.

‘Fiction and Reality’, in Writer, Changchun (CN) July 2002.