主题：从古希腊人到谷歌：字母如何形塑了西方的世界观

主讲人： Laurence de Looze（西安大略大学、教授）

时间：2017年6月19日下午3：00—4：00

地点：校本部C512室

主办：外国语学院

分类：外国语学院语言文化与世界文明系列讲座（十一）

内容简介：There are principally two great writing systems in operation in the world today: character writing (of which Chinese is the great example) and the alphabetic writing that characterizes non-Asian areas of the world. This talk looks at Western attitudes to alphabetic and examines the ways in which the alphabet has conditioned the Western view of the world. After glancing briefly at the ancient Greek alphabet, which was seen as comprising the elements that made up the cosmos, we will move to the Latin/Roman alphabet. We will see how the Latin letters were Christianized during the Middle Ages and used to express a theological view. With the Renaissance of the 16th century we will observe how the interest in Antiquity and the rise of printed books altered the view of the alphabet. Letters continued to be seen as a window on the world, but now they expressed the secularized qualities of social order and balance and reason. As we move through the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, we will see how Western culture consistently used the alphabet as a lens for interpreting itself and foreign cultures. The talk will conclude with a brief consideration of “asemic” writing – that is, writing that appears to be letters but frustrates any attempt to decipher meaning.

主讲人简介：Laurence de Looze，西安大略大学比较文学系教授，曾在波士顿大学、哈佛大学、法国布洛克大学等世界名校任教，主要研究兴趣包括：中世纪和文艺复兴时期的文化（包括法语、冰岛语、英语、西班牙语、拉丁语和意大利语）、文本理论、书写史、文学理论和比较文学。在相关领域发表30多篇有影响力的研究论文，受多部论文集之邀撰写数十篇研究论文，翻译作品4部，发表文学作品14篇，近期发表的论文有：

“An Atheist in Rome.” The New England Review 36 (2015): 111-45.

“The Piano is Always There: A Story of Lisbon.” The New England Review 35 (2015): 185-98.