On the afternoon of December 10, 2024, Professor Emeritus Tanaka Minoru from Tsuru University visited our school and delivered an academic lecture titled “Revisiting ‘Fujino-sensei’—The ‘Turn’ in its ‘Deep Structure’.” The lecture was hosted by Associate Professor Huo Fei from the School of Foreign Languages, and attended by more than a hundred teachers and students from the SFL.
Professor Tanaka argued that “Mr. Fujino” is narrated from the perspective of the narrator, “I,” who, from the present standpoint, reflects on events that occurred two decades ago in Sendai. While it may seem like an essay, it should actually be regarded as a fictional literary work, analyzed from the perspective of modern fiction. Typically, when reading modern novels, we tend to focus on “who, when and where, said what.” However, Professor Tanaka emphasized that, to truly understand the deep meaning of a novel, one must objectify the narrator, which means to analyze from an objective perspective “why the narrator ‘I’ tells the story in such a particular way” and what kind of worldview and life philosophy of the narrator this may reveal. Therefore, “Mr. Fujino” contains not only the “I” who studied in Sendai, but also the “I” from twenty years later. The key to understanding the work lies in exploring how the “I” from twenty years later reflects on and reassesses the “I” from the past. Additionally, Professor Tanaka pointed out that the “I” in Lu Xun’s “Hometown” also recalls the past from a present perspective, similar to the “I” in Fujino-sensei. Finally, Professor Tanaka further illustrated how to interpret modern novels by discussing works from renowned Japanese authors such as Natsume Sōseki and Haruki Murakami.
To help the teachers and students present better understand Professor Tanaka’s research methods, Professor Huo Shifu from Xi'an Jiaotong University provided a detailed explanation of Tanaka's lecture and facilitated an extensive interactive discussion with the attendees. This lecture offered valuable insights and guidance for our faculty and students in the study of “modern fiction”. It not only broadened everyone's understanding of Lu Xun’s literature but also inspired greater enthusiasm for literary research, providing theoretical support and reference for future academic endeavors.
Speaker: Professor Tanaka Minoru
Commentator: Professor Huo Shifu
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