On 23 March, the College of Film of Shanghai Academy held an online lecture entitled "The White Snake of the World: Local Legend and Cross-cultural Communication and Reconstruction". The lecture was organized and chaired by Professor Wan Chuanfa of the Shanghai Theatre Academy. Professor Luo Liang, a famous scholar from the University of Kentucky, was specially invited to give a talk. The lecture targeted mainly at the students of Shanghai Theatre Academy studying the "Film Theory and Criticism" course, but it also attracted more than 100 students and scholars from outside.
At the lecture, Professor Luo Liang started with a one-minute promotional film made by her daughter for the book "The White Snake of the World", and briefly talked about the origin of her research on the theme of "White Snake", that is, paying close attention to the current popular culture, trying to break the academic ivory tower and realizing the possibility of dialogue with the reality. In the exchange and discussion session of the lecture, Professor Wan Chuanfa brought forward more thinking points on the basis of Professor Luo Liang's research.
With extremely rich information and abundant materials, this online lecture gave a vivid lesson to the graduate students of Shanghai Theatre Academy from a unique and fresh perspective. It made a profound and vivid example of how to apply film theory to film practice and how to grasp the close reading of texts in the future, and it also lit up a shining light of cosmopolitanism studies for the students.
