Hailing from East Asia, I was raised amidst classical Chinese literature, Greek mythology, English literature and classical music. Yet I have always felt more connected to western literature and philosophy, especially English and Greek literature, than to Chinese counterparts, for their logical and organized way of responding to the intellectual tradition. Since there is no classics departments in Taiwan, I instead majored in foreign languages and literature, with a focus on British modernism. Still I have always been keen to look for literary motifs, techniques and textual reference to ancient Greece in English literature. Moreover, when I had the chance to take classical Greek in my senior year, my passion for Greek tragedy, epics and myths grew even stronger. Therefore, I was …show more content…
Additionally, with a strong passion in Greek tragedy, I was also exposed to reception studies when I audited various courses on the philosophical, literary, theatrical and cinematic reception of Greek drama offered in the Department of Comparative Literature and Hellenic Studies Program at NYU. From those courses, I began to form a clearer idea about how reception studies can help scholars and readers alike better understand the theatrical impact the ancient Greeks experience, and why Greek tragedy has such everlasting influence even until today. In turn, my academic interests gradually came to focus on exploring the way Greek tragedy is received by ancient and modern audience and readers. I am particularly interested in the intricate interconnection between performance and text, the visual and the auditory, the past and the present, in Greek tragedy and its reception in British modernism, as I recognize the focus on visuality and memory in British modernism that could be traced back to ancient