On March 15, 2024, Prof. Dr. Ren Haiyan, Deputy Director of the Humboldt Center for Transdisciplinary Studies, delivered a lecture at the University of Macau. The lecture, titled "Desire for Knowledge and Historicity: A Comparison of the Travel Writings of Alexander von Humboldt and Xu Xiake", delved into the works of these two eminent travelers, aiming to illuminate the pursuit of knowledge and historicity within disparate cultural contexts by juxtaposing the 19th-century writings of Alexander von Humboldt with the 17th-century travel diaries of Xu Xiake.

In her analysis, Prof. Dr. Ren underscored that, despite the temporal and cultural chasm of two centuries, Humboldt and Xu Xiake exhibited a remarkable congruence in their fervent quest for knowledge and their profound epistemological engagement with the natural world. She elucidated that Humboldt's oeuvre not only serves as a prism for examining China from a Western perspective but also facilitates a deeper introspective understanding of self and cultural heterogeneity through this transhistorical dialogue.

Furthermore, Prof. Dr. Ren accentuated the imperative of critically engaging with the notion of modernity. She posited that the comparative study of these travelers' works enables a more nuanced and holistic scrutiny of European modernity and its dialectical interplay with global cultural formations. By examining the intricate dynamics of cultural interaction and influence, this comparative approach enriches our comprehension of modernity as a multifaceted and globally entangled phenomenon.

Prof. Dr. Ren's lecture provided the academic community at the University of Macau with a sophisticated theoretical framework for understanding the symbiotic relationship between knowledge, historicity, and cultural context. This intellectual engagement not only deepened the audience's appreciation of Humboldt and Xu Xiake's contributions to travel literature but also inspired further scholarly inquiry into the interconnectedness of global cultural narratives.