Teaching 

I co-developed and co-taught a postgraduate course entitled A Survey of World Literature, which incorporates elements of Chinese literature and cultural studies. In the course we touched upon the history of the music register 乐籍 and how this stigmatizing system enslaved music practitioners from the Northern Wei to the years of Yongzheng, as well as the subtle relationships between music and prostitution throughout. We talked about school songs 学堂乐歌 in the context of late-Qing and early republican music education, the propagandic earlier ones with highly-idealized abstract words as well as the gradual ease into an aesthetic education that catered to the Romantic notion of children. I shared my research on how the musico-poetics of Shao Xunmei 邵洵美 was influenced by the works of A. C. Swinburne, a Victorian poet whom he applauds. We looked at the intricate correlations among literary texts, musical compositions and adaptations, exemplified by Xu Zhimo’s 徐志摩 poem “Rhythm of the Wave” (海韵) set to Zhao Yuanren’s 赵元任 choral composition in 1927, as well as Zhuang Nu 庄奴 and Zuo Hongyuan’s 左宏元 adaptation through Deng Lijun’s 邓丽君 enactment for the eponymous film in 1974.

I co-developed and co-taught an undergraduate course entitled Interdisciplinary Perspectives in Literary Studies. I have marked postgraduate and undergraduate course papers on topics traversing modern and contemporary Chinese literature, and conducted consultations for those who are especially interested in word and music studies. The papers I have graded include those that examine the performance and imagination in Li He’s 李贺 “Prelude to Li Ping’s Konghou” (李凭箜篌引); the practice of luodichangshu 落地唱书, a form of narrative singing performed and circulated by farmers at Shengzhou 嵊州 in the mid-19th century, which became a prototype of Yue opera 越剧; the shamanic ritual music in Guo Xuebo’s 郭雪波 novel Mongolia (蒙古利亚); Yu Hua’s 余华 Literature or Music (文学或者音乐) and how his Chronicle of a Blood Merchant (许三观卖血记) was influenced by Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7 and Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. Matthew Passion; how Maoqiang opera 茂腔 regulates the narrative structure of Mo Yan’s 莫言 Sandalwood Death (檀香刑); the similarity between songwriters Fang Wenshan’s 方文山 “Fireworks Cool Easily” (烟花易冷) and Xu Song’s 许嵩 “A Thousand Times” (千百度).

I have also marked postgraduate and undergraduate course papers on world literature: the interplay of Irish nationalism and the Irish composer Michael Balfe’s operas in the stories of James Joyce’s Dubliners; interpretations of the dialogue between the joker and the thief in Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower”; repetition as a musical effect in Paul Verlaine’s “Tears Fall in My Heart”; the influence of nature on the protagonist’s musical profession in Romain Rolland’s Jean-Christophe; how Romain Rolland compares the musician Camille Saint-Saëns with some 18th century French writers in his Essays on Music; the role of the Beatles’ and Henry Mancini’s music in Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood; how the five stories in Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro can be regarded as the movements of a sonata.

Delivery

I am committed to creating a dynamic and engaging learning environment. I used various media formats in my postgraduate teaching to enthuse and engage students. When it comes to the relationship between ci lyrics and music, the course incorporates an interview featuring a musicologist talking about how Jiang Kui’s 姜夔 writings might help reconstruct the authentic music of Song Dynasty, and a recorded performance of artists’ reproduction of his lyric songs. Inquiry-based learning is crucial to my teaching. I used a platform called “Hi现场” to provide an interactive message wall on the projection screen, where students can send their questions or comments which I can address in real time. It proves to be more popular than cold-calling in terms of student participation.

Service

I have shown good citizenship during my lectureship in SYSU. I served as a member for the Graduate Admissions Examination Committee (MA programs interviews), the Undergraduate Major Allocation Committee (interviews), and the Adult Education Examination Committee (exam setting and marking). I set and invigilated various undergraduate and postgraduate exams. I have incorporated pastoral care into my course frameworks and taught students positive psychology to cope with stress and depression.