Glasgow-Nankai PGR Research Symposium: “Engaging China: Transnational and Interdisciplinary Approaches”

Monday 1 December 2025

Advanced Research Centre (Room 237C), University of Glasgow

This symposium celebrates the 10th anniversary of the Glasgow-Nankai partnership and the launch of the new Glasgow-Nankai Research Centre. Building on the growing network between Glasgow and Nankai PGRs, this event brings together emerging scholars from across the UK to explore China-related topics through diverse disciplinary lenses. We showcase how engagement with China enriches our understanding of literature, arts, culture, media, society, and translation studies while fostering dialogue between researchers from different backgrounds. The symposium embraces interdisciplinary approaches that reveal how China studies intersect with broader questions in the Humanities, and we are equally interested in China’s relationships with other nations and cultures, including but not limited to Sino-Scottish and/or Sino-British connections. The event is generously supported by the College of Arts and Humanities PGR Community Building Fund and organised in collaboration with the Glasgow-Nankai Joint Graduate School.

Alongside oral presentations, the symposium will also feature poster displays during lunch and coffee breaks. We are honoured to welcome keynote speaker Dr Saihong Li (University of Stirling) and guest sessions from Professor Zhang Zhizhong (Nankai University) and Dr Qing Guo (Lecturer in Xidian University, Ph.D. in Translation Studies from Glasgow-Nankai Joint Graduate School). 

9am Breakfast

10am Inauguration: Dr Ramona Fotiade (Internationalisation Officer, School of Modern Languages and Cultures)

Panel 1 Keynote Address by Dr Saihong Li (Stirling), chaired by Dr Jonathan Evans (Glasgow)

10.10-11 am Keynote Speaker Dr Saihong Li (Stirling): Translating and Reimagining Food in Jane Austen’s Emma

Panel 2 “Memory, Trauma, and China’s Pasts in Film and Literature”, chaired by Dr Claudia Dellacasa (Glasgow)

11-11.15 am Speaker 1 Yiming Liu (Stirling): Trauma of the War Memory Reflected in the Science Fiction Translation Process (1900-1949)

11.15-11.30 am Speaker 2 Shujia Fan (Glasgow) Understanding ‘Alternate History' in Chinese Film and Television

11.30-11.45 am Speaker 3 Yuan Liu (Glasgow, Conference Convenor): “Shooting” Trauma: Photography as Weapon, Witness, and Wound in Nanjing Photo Studio (2025)

11.45-12 pm Q&A

12-1pm Lunch (Poster Presentations)

Panel 3 “Translation and China’s Modernity/-isation”, chaired by Dr Elisa Segnini (Glasgow)

1-1.15 pm Speaker 4 (online) Dr Qing Guo (Xidian University, guest speaker) and Peng Gao (Xidian University): Adam Smith in Late Qing China: A Case Study based on Fu Guo Ce

1.15 – 1.30 pm Speaker 5 Tianqi Su (Glasgow), Yuxuan Li (Xidian University) and Pingyu Shao (Southwest Jiaotong University): From guojia caifu 国家财富 (wealth of state) to guomin caifu 国民财富 (wealth of the people): The Evolution of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations in Chinese Translation and Thought”

1.30-1.45 pm Speaker 6 Nuo Chen (Oxford): Sublime in the Crisis of Meaning

1.45-2 pm Q&A

2.00-2.30 Coffee Break (Poster Presentations)

Panel 4 “Contemporary Chinese/Sinophone Literature, Cinema, and Culture”, chaired by Dr Mi Tian (Nankai)

2.30-2.45 pm Speaker 7 Shannon Gilbert (Oxford): Monsters in the Cabinet: Han Shaogong and Yan Ge’s Textual Wunderkammers

2.45-3.00 pm Speaker 8 Shasha He (Glasgow/Tongji): From Politicized to Universal Interpretation: On the Literary Image in the English Translation of The Republic of Wine

3.00-3.15 pm Speaker 9 Heshan Zhao (Birmingham): The paradox of masculine order in post-socialist China: The flexible reproduction of hegemonic masculinity and the marginalization of female masculinity

3.15-3.30 Speaker 10 Tingting Zhong (St. Andrews): When Chineseness Encounters Cosmopolitanism: Home-searching in Xiaolu Guo’s novel A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers

3.30-3.50 Q&A

3.50-4.05 Speaker 11 Yuanxin Chu (St Andrews): Reconfiguring Silence as Sonic form of Liu Bai (留白) through Daoist Cosmology in Hu Bo’s films

4:05-4.20 Speaker 12 Dongxuan Zhao (Edinburgh): Transcultural, Intermedial Re-interpretation of ‘Rudimentary Military-Diplomatic’ Strategies in 21st century: Sunzi Bingfa (The Art of War) from Chinese Ancient Classic to Comics

4.20-4.35 Speaker 13 Ocean Xu (Salford): Aesthetic Politics in China’s Documentary Co-production for Cultural Diplomacy

4:35-4:50 Q&A

Panel 5 Poetry Reading (online)

4.50-5.00 Professor Zhizhong Zhang (Nankai)

From 5-5.30pm Informal Reception (self-funded) at The Curlers Rest (256-260 Byres Road, G12 8SH). All welcome.