On November 10th, the Faculty of Literature organized a scientific conference on the theme "Reception of Literature and Art in Vietnam during the Integration Period". The conference was one of the activities leading up to the 55th anniversary of the Faculty of Literature. Attending the conference were Assoc. Prof. Dr. Vu Duc Nghieu - Vice Rector of the University, faculty members, and scientists from within and outside the university.Fifty-six reports submitted to the conference focused on theoretical and practical issues in the reception of literature and art in Vietnam during the integration period. In his opening remarks, Associate Professor Dr. Vu Duc Nghieu emphasized: The issues of Western reception aesthetics, based on Western artistic experience, Eastern and ancestral conceptions of literature, literary appreciation, literary criticism, the way of absorbing the literary and artistic heritage of the nation and humanity, as well as literary criticism and teaching activities in the period of international integration, in the context of the strong development of directly related scientific fields and disciplines such as linguistics, semiotics, discourse analysis, anthropology, sociology, psychology… are extremely fascinating but also incredibly complex. These issues may be resolved thoroughly, reaching consensus, but may also remain open, requiring further research, exploration, and discussion.
At a seminar on the reception of literature and art in Vietnam during the integration period, Associate Professor Dr. Doan Duc Phuong (Head of the Faculty of Literature, University of Social Sciences and Humanities) argued that receiving literature from a cultural perspective is a necessary method, especially in the current era. According to Associate Professor Dr. Doan Duc Phuong, cultural reception is essentially a communication process. The communication between the author and the recipient is the relationship between speaker and listener, writer and reader, expresser and sharer, empathizer. Receiving literature from a cultural perspective does not aim to understand the artistic world of the work as a closed universe, but rather sets the task of comparing, contrasting, and tracing the cultural concepts of the era in which the work was produced to find the origins of the forms of conception about humanity, space, and time in the work. Author Nguyen Hoa (Head of the Culture and Arts Department of Nhan Dan Newspaper) raised concerns about a situation that has existed and continues to exist in the appreciation of visual art works. The author emphasized that the majority of the Vietnamese public has not yet adapted to modern art movements and schools originating from the West; people are largely accustomed to and only use the "resemblance or lack thereof" criterion of portraiture to evaluate works. Focusing on practical issues in the reception of Vietnamese literature during the integration period, Associate Professor Dr. Le Huy Bac (Hanoi Pedagogical University I) addressed postmodern Vietnamese literature. The author pointed out that: in today's "materialistic" context, spiritual values are disregarded, evidenced by the neglect of literature in schools and in life, making it even more difficult for postmodern literature to connect with life. Author Dang Anh Dao (Faculty of Literature) contributed an opinion emphasizing the "application of comparative literature – an essential and unique approach in contemporary comparative research." Comparative literature is not the artist's fiction; it depends on specialized scientific knowledge, the ability to encompass the material, and the creative individuality of both the source and the recipient. In addition, many other opinions focused on general theoretical issues: the systematic approach to receiving modern literary concepts and movements – Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Van Dan (Institute of Literary Studies), the issue of receiving foreign literature – Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Truong Lich (Faculty of Literature)… to specific practical issues: the reception of M. Baktine's novel theory in Vietnam – Lecturer Bui Viet Thang (Faculty of Literature), the issue of the reader – reception in novel theory in Vietnam from the beginning of the 20th century to the present – Nguyen Ngoc Thien (Literary Forum Magazine)…
