Heidelberg University - Shanghai Jiao Tong University

International Graduate Student Conference 2025

Worldmaking Revisited: Transcultural Perspectives on Constructing Realities

Shanghai Jiao Tong University, October 10-12

This year's joint international graduate student conference offered the opportunity to engage in a dialogue with PhD and advanced MA students from Heidelberg and Shanghai around transcultural approaches and concepts of worldmaking. The conference opened with a Keynote speech by Heidelberg Worldmaking team member Sara Landa on “'Worlding' China, Worldmaking in a Dialogue with China: Chinese Literature in a Global Context” which reflected on the use of the concept of "worldmaking" from Nelson Goodman to recent approaches in Narratology and Media Studies as a conceptual tool in order to tackle the multiple layers of literary border-crossings.

During the following two days, graduate students from both universities were invited to present their work-in-progress and rethink it from a "worldmaking" perspective, while receiving feedback from scholars from both Universities, among them former project fellow Long Qilin.

The conference thus provided multiple opportunities to continue our “dialogue with China” and to offer young scholars a broader, multifaceted perspective on their own research topics.