The 2nd Jiangnan Culture and Lingnan Culture Forum Convened in Shanghai
On October 26th, the 2nd Jiangnan Culture and Lingnan Culture Forum themed “Integration, Innovation, and Development: Inheritance and Innovation of Regional Culture and Regional Integration” was convened in Shanghai. More than 100 well-known experts and scholars in the fields of Jiangnan culture and Lingnan culture from Shanghai, Guangdong, and other provinces attended.
In the report session of the main forum, Jiang Shuzhuo, Chairman of the Guangdong Writers’ Association and Professor of Jinan University, introduced the spiritual core of the so-called “New Southern Literature” and its four characteristics, cultural significance, and innovative value. Over the past century, the cultural intersection and integration of Chinese and Western cultures in the Hong Kong and Macao regions have formed a cultural hybrid, which has provided a path for the opening of the New Southern Literature. Lingnan culture, especially the Hong Kong culture, was deeply influenced by Jiangnan culture. However, in Lingnan, new changes have taken place within the mixed environment of Chinese and Western cultures there. The literary circle is responding to the intersection, interweaving, and exchanges between regional cultures, looking for new breakthroughs and aesthetic innovations.
Xiong Yuezhi, a historian from the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and former Vice Chairman of the Association of Chinese Historians, believed that Jiangnan culture and Lingnan culture have much in common as well as radical differences. In terms of natural endowments, evolutionary processes, and cultural impact suffered in the modern history of China, the two cultures are very much alkie. As for differences, the Confucianism-dominated Central Plains culture reached the Jiangnan area earlier and exerted more influence here, while the Lingnan area was affected by Western culture earlier and in a more profound way. In modern times, with the convenience of modern transportation and with the opening of Shanghai as a trading port to the world, and with the increasing frequency of economic and cultural exchanges between China and the West, Jiangnan and Lingnan cultures have undergone extensive, continuous, and in-depth exchanges, complementary interaction, and integration.
Prof. Zuo Pengjun, Dean of the School of International Culture, South China Normal University, appreciated Jiangnan scholars’ intentional attention to, deep recognition of, and extensive publicity for Lingnan personalities have promoted the spread and influence of Lingnan literature and scholarship. Much of the Lingnan intellectual traditions had been transplanted from Jiangnan before it developed its local features and then influenced many other areas, including Jiangnan in turn. “Looking up to Jiangnan” and “Remembering Jiangnan” make up an important of the cultural memories and ideals of Lingnan, and the cultural imprint and memory of Jiangnan are visible in various aspects of Lingnan culture.
In the opening ceremony, the Research Center for Modern Chinese Society of Shanghai Normal University and the Research Center for Lingnan Culture of South China Normal University signed a strategic cooperation agreement.
This forum also included two sub-forums. Experts and scholars discussed various topics such as the characteristics, and development prospects of Jiangnan culture and Lingnan culture as well as their connections and exchanges.
