Zhejiang University establishes the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies in December. [Photo provided to China Daily]

A first-of-its-kind academic center, established at Zhejiang University in December, is prepared to offer the world Chinese perspectives on early English and European literary studies.

The Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies has Hao Tianhu, a key researcher, as its director.

"The center will cultivate a wholesome and vibrant academic community with an international perspective. Chinese scholarship needs to meet international standards, and it also needs to face the world with confidence", says Hao, who holds a PhD in English from Columbia University, and has contributed to studies on English poet John Milton in partnership with his international peers.

Hao says China has an outstanding tradition of early English literary studies represented by the late Li Funing and Wang Zuoliang, and that the center will boost international academic exchanges.

Meanwhile, the center has formed a strong team of international consultants.

David Kastan, the George M. Bodman professor of literature and culture at Yale University, who is also on the center's international consultants' committee, says: "This seems to me a wonderful opportunity to develop links of meaningful cooperation between Chinese and Western scholars of this important period in which China and Europe first became aware of one another."

Thomas N. Corns, an "honored scholar of the year 2003" of the Milton Society of America, says the setting up of the center is a timely project on Milton's global reach.

The center plans a variety of academic activities in the coming years, with John Peter Rumrich from the University of Texas having presented the first lecture at the opening.

"I'm looking to genuine and effective exchanges, not grand seminars that touch only the surface," says Hao, who plans to lead a study on the Renaissance and its influence on China, going beyond literature to history, politics and the arts.

The center's key projects this year include cross-cultural studies on Milton in China.

Hao also plans to introduce more ways of researching English literature manuscripts to his Chinese peers.

Feng Yuchu contributed to the story.