Yiyun LU is currently a PhD student of comparative literature at Free University of Berlin. She studied at China University of Political Science and Law (bachelor in Law and German), University of Cologne (exchange student with Albertus-Magnus-Scholarship) and Peking University (master in comparative literature). Her research interests lie in comparative literature and modern German literature. She is currently working on her doctoral dissertation entitled On the Theory of Universality of the early German Romanticism.

On the Theory of Universality of the Early German Romanticism

The doctoral dissertation of Yiyun LU works on the theory of universality of the early German Romanticism. The ideal of “universality” appeals to generations of greatest minds of all time and is also a key concept among the early German Romanticists. The work intends to investigate the meanings of “universality” in the sense of German Romanticism. Multiple dimensions, not only literary, but also philosophical, historical, political and theological, will be employed to explain what stands behind their longing for universality as well as to outline the intellectual development from the German Enlightenment to contemporary times.