On October 23, 2011, the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures held a ceremony to appoint Jonathan Culler as Visiting Professor in the Department before the opening of the 2011 Forum of Chinese Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies at Tsinghua. Xie Weihe, Vice President of Tsinghua University attended the ceremony and awarded the Letter of Appointment to Professor Culler.

In the afternoon, Professor Culler gave a lecture, “Literary Theory Today,” in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures. Professor Culler made a general review of the development of literary theory since the 1970s, with a focus on six major trends in the development of literary theory today, the revival of narratology, Derrida studies, the study of human-animal relations, ecocriticism, post-human studies and the return of aesthetics. Professor Wang Ning, director of the Center for Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies in the Department hosted the lecture. The lecture attracted more than 60 faculty members and students from Tsinghua University, Beijing Language and Culture University, Peking University and so on.