Peking University and the State University of New York at Albany, with the collaboration of Peking University Center for European and American Literatures, China Association for the Comparative Study of Chinese and American Cultures and the Office of Social Sciences of Peking University, jointly sponsored the international conference on new approaches to the study of American literature and culture in the new millennium during October 24-27, 2001 in Beijing, China. The emerging technologies and the global cultural and economic systems require a rethinking of the traditional themes and texts and a redefinition of traditional notions of literature, arts, and culture. The very way that meaning is made is changing, and this change is reflected even in the basic academic disciplines. New critical methods and new theories of literature and culture have appeared and are transforming literary and cultural studies. In an important sense the disciplinary boundaries are being redrawn, and new kinds of material enter into traditionally well-defines field. Literary texts are studied in relation to texts from the popular culture, and both are studied in relation to the cultural conditions that they reflect and to a broad range of philosophical theories. We feel that it is time to meet and share our feelings toward a more comprehensive mapping of the twenty-first century literary and cultural landscape. By looking backward to our rich histories, and beyond our present contexts to what divergent models can offer us, we joined our efforts to envision a new future for the reading of texts of all forms: theoretical, poetic, narrative, dramatic, artistic, cultural, political, etc.

Many issues were addressed to from different perspectives at the conference: How are familiar texts of American literature amd culture to be read in the new context of the twenty-first century? What are the common concerns of literary and cultural scholarship in China and the United States? What are the differences? How does technological innovation unsettle notions of what constitutes literature, art, culture, time, space, and humanity itself? How might globalization change notions of "national" literatures, arts, and thought been conceptualized and taught across cultures? How might literary and cultural scholarship and education contribute to shaping these vital changes? What perspectives on these issues might scholars from "the oldest civilization" and the "new world" offer one another? We attempt to open new avenues of cooperation and mutual understanding between two cultures that will play major roles in the history of the twenty-first century and between two academic cultures that can profit from continuing interaction.

More than 200 scholars from different parts of the world took part with great interst and enthusiasms in this international conference on American literature and culture.……