English faculty members visit China

Carol Osborne, associate dean in the Edwards College of Humanities and Fine Arts, and Ray Moye, associate professor in the Department of English, visited the University of Shandong, Weihai, this summer, each delivering eight lectures to 200 sophomores in translation studies.

Moye and Osborne had hosted Li Jie, an instructor at Weihai, in the fall of 2010 when he came to CCU as a visiting scholar, so they were both eager to reconnect with their colleague, meet his family and interact with the Chinese students in his program.

Moye’s lectures focused on a graphic novel version of "Beowulf," linking the history and culture of Anglo-Saxon England to the cultural shifts now occurring in China. Osborne chose the topic of food as a vehicle for addressing idiomatic expressions and regional dialects, trends in popular culture, and current controversies over factory farming, nutrition, climate change and GMOs.

Whether judging exhibitions at the foreign culture festival, having conversations with students in the cafeteria or on the beach, or attending more formal banquets with faculty from the university, Moye and Osborne relished the opportunity to build relationships as they helped promote cross-cultural understanding.

They both want to return to Weihai at some point, but meanwhile, they have initiated two projects to ensure continued collaboration between Shandong University and Coastal Carolina. The sophomores in China will be corresponding by email with students in the humanities FYE classes, and Li Jie, along with a student, will be translating the graphic novel version of "Beowulf" into Chinese. In fact, thanks to the efforts of Moye, the author and publisher of the "Beowulf" text have already offered an advance to these Chinese scholars for their work.