Drawing on long-standing oral and literary traditions of the White Snake legend, this talk reframes the White Snake as a “resident alien” figure whose serpentine identity has historically triggered suspicion, exclusion, and suppression in the human world. The lecture considers how that metaphor takes on renewed urgency in the context of heightened xenophobia during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how contemporary Anglophone creative projects mobilize the White Snake narrative to engage questions of immigration, identity, and minority activism through digital media and platforms.

Liang Luo 羅靚 is Professor of Chinese Studies and Chair of the Department of Modern and Classical Languages at George Mason University. She is the author of The Global White Snake 世界的白蛇 and The Avant-Garde and the Popular in Modern China 先鋒主義與流行文化, and she works as a Chinese cultural consultant for film and streaming projects while exploring new ways to communicate research through creative nonfiction, graphic narrative, and game design.

Sponsored by the Asian Studies Program and co-sponsored by the International Studies Program, the Department of Chinese and Japanese, Drama, Film, and the Office of the Dean of the Faculty.

This event is free and open to the public.