Curriculum Vitae
Ren Haiyan is Professor at the English department of Hunan Normal University, co-founder and Deputy Director of the Humboldt Center for Transdisciplinary Studies. From 2018 till 2024, she served as Managing Editor for two academic journals, 外国语言与文化 and Journal of Foreign Languages and Cultures. From 2010 till 2011, she worked at Xiamen University as Assistant Professor. She received the doctorate in March 2010 from Nanjing University. From 2007 to 2008, she studied as a visiting student at the University of Washington, Seattle. From 2014 to 2015, she worked as a visiting scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Email: haiyren@hunnu.edu.cn
Address: Room 310, Foreign Studies College
36 Lushan Road, Yuelu District, Changsha, 410081, Hunan, China.
Selected Publications
a) Monograph
Ø (2023) Robinson Crusoe on the Move: The Knowledge and Imagination of the Modern West. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.
Ø (2015) Différance in Signifying Robinson Crusoe (Bern: Peter Lang, 2015).
b) Co-edited Book
Ø (2024) Montanhas e pescadores: Crítica cultural chinesa contemporânea. (co-edited with Chen Zhongyi and João Cezar de Castro Rocha), Belo Horizonte: Autêntica.
c) Co-edited Issues
Ø (2020) “Towards Brazil and China Cross-Cultural Understanding and Transnational Cooperation” (co-edited with Joao Cezar de Castro Rocha, Jiang Hongxin, Zeng Yanyu), special issue of Revista Brasileira de Literatura Comparada, 22.41.
Ø (2020) “Brazil Literature and Culture” (co-edited with Joao Cezar de Castro Rocha), special issue of Foreign Languages and Cultures, 4.1.
d) Article / Book Chapter
1) “Trans-vision of Robinson Crusoe: The Migration of a Literary Text.” Journal of Foreign Languages and Cultures. 2023 (1): 16-29.
2) “Imitation and Creation in Pantomime.” Foreign Literature. 2023 (3): 136-145.
3) “Exploring China in Humboldt.” HiN. 2023 (24): 5-12. (co-authored with Ottmar Ette)
4) “Humboldt in China.” Welt Trends. 2022 (194): 8-12. (co-author with Ottmar Ette)
5) “China und Humboldt.” China und Deutschland in einer turbulenten Welt. Eds.Yuru Lian, Raimund Krämer. Potsdam: Welt Trends, 2022, pp. 233-239. (co-authored with Ottmar Ette
6) “From the Spectacle to Innocence: Play in Friday.” Bilder in Bewegung. Edited by Patricia Gwozdz et al. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021. 229-238.
7) “On Possible Lives: The Ethical Choices of Modern Crusoes,” Interdisciplinary Studies of Literature, 5.3 (2021): 498-508.
8) “Exoticism in Jhumpa Lahiri’s ‘Sexy’,” Foreign Languages and Cultures, 3.2 (2019): 69-76.
9) “Alienation and Perverted Desire at Cross-cultural Borders in Jhumpa Lahir’s Interpreter of Maladies,” Journal of Hunan University of Science & Technology ( Social Science Edition), 22.2 (2019): 46-51.
10) “Play in Friday: Tournier’s Critique of Subject,” Foreign Literature, 1 (2019): 121-127.
11) “Conversion and Correspondence in the Chinese-English Translation of Novels,” Chinese Translators Journal, 4 (2018): 91-97.
12) “Desire and Power in Historical Colonialist Narrative：Foe Revisited, ” Journal of Social Science of Hunan Normal University, 4 (2017): 140-146.
13) “Variations on Subject and Other: Tournier’s Friday as a Re-vision of the Myth of Robinson Crusoe,” Foreign Literatures, 2 (2015): 95-102.
14) “On the Significance of Literature in Higher Education,” Journal of Educational Science of Hunan Normal University, 13.4 (2014): 85-88.
15) “Study on Target-Oriented English Writing Course,” Journal of Central South University of Forestry & Technology (Social Sciences), 7.4 (2013): 180-182.
16) “Traditional Chinese Culture Course for English Majors,” Journal of Educational Science of Hunan Normal University, 12.3 (2013): 115-118.
17) “Literary Criticism in the Romantic Period,” A History of British Literary Criticism, Nanjing: Nanjing UP, 2012. 108-148.
18) “Robinson Crusoe: A Myth of the Enlightenment Revisited,” Foreign Literature, 5 (2012): 74-81. Later collected in Jiang Daochao and Fang Cheng eds., English Literature Studies in Chinese Context (Nanjing: Nanjing University Press, 2015).
19) “On the Relation between Representation and Power in Colonialist Context: Foe’s Rewriting of the Robinson Crusoe Myth,” Foreign Literature, 3 (2009): 81-88. Later collected in Wang Shouren ed., Essays on the History of British Literature (Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2013).
20) “Racial Hatred Disguised as Love,” Jiangsu Foreign Language Teaching and Research, (2007): 99-102.
21) “The Awakening of a Solitary Soul: Kate Chopin’s The Awakening,” Journal of Hunan University of Science and Technology, 10.1 (2007): 110-114.
22) “The Image of Black Middle Class in Song of Solomon,” Journal of Social Science of Hunan Normal University, 35.5 (2006): 122-125.
23) “American Naturalism,” Journal of Social Science of Hunan Normal University, 32.6 (2003): 97-101.
24) “Moral and Social Reason in Wuthering Heights,” Journal of Xiangtan Normal University, 25.5 (2003): 52-55.
25) “An Extraordinary Common Woman,” Journal of Educational Science of Hunan Normal University, 1.5 (2002): 260-262.
e) Review
Ø “Holism, Representation and Realism: Wang Shouren’s Writing of the History of Contemporary Foreign Literature in China.” Interdisciplinary Studies of Literature, 2024 (8.2): 224-242.
f) Interview
Ø “Humboldt as a Foundation of Inspiration: An Interview with Ottmar Ette.” HiN, 2024 (49.25): 5-18.
Ø “Literature, Life, Living Together: An Interview with Ottmar Ette.” Foreign Literature, 2024 (4): 179-189.
Ø “Some Informal Personal Comments on Literature and Literary Criticism: An Interview with Liu Yiqing.” Foreign Languages and Cultures, 2024 (3): 123-135.
g）Translation
1) “Humboldt, Slavery and Revolution: Global Anti-Colonial, Abolitionist and Anti-Racist Perspectives,” Foreign Languages and Cultures, 5.3 (2021): 51-61.
2) “About Islands, Archipelagos, and Archipelagic Writing: Alexander von Humboldt’s Isle de Cube, Antilles en général, ” Foreign Languages and Cultures, 3.3 (2019): 2-11.
3) “Early Chaucer,” in Critical Essay on Geoffrey Chaucer, edited by Xiao Minghan, Nanjing: Yilin Press, 2019, 197- 225.
h) Keynote Speech
Ø “Journeying in the World: Alexander von Humboldt and Xu Xiake.” Rethinking the World: The 2nd Humboldt Day in China. Changsha, October 25, 2024.
Ø “Curiosity versus Historicity: A Comparative Reading of Alexander von Humboldt and Xu Xiake’s Travel Writings.” Ways of/in European Modernity: The 1st Humboldt Day in China. Changsha, October 11, 2023.
Ø “Alexander von Humboldt and TransAreal Humboldtian Studies.” Literatures of the World and TransArea Studies: The 3rd Annual Conference on Foreign Languages and Cultures. Zhangjiajie, China, June 17, 2023.
Ø “Alexander von Humboldt and Central Asia.” The 24th Anniversary of the Alexander von Humboldt Family Museum. Havana, Cuba, October 29, 2021. (via video).
Ø “Possibilities in Life: The Enlightenment of Modern Crusoes.” The 13th Congress and Symposium of the National Association of English Literature Studies. Nanjing, October 23, 2021.