Sublime Kudos

Neuroscience major Zhen Li ’11 earns Courtland Prize in English

by Michelle Simmons

January 26, 2010

Zhen Li ’11 of Dalian, China, recently received the Stephen M. Courtland ’63 Prize in English for his essay on the concept of the sublime. The neuroscience major enjoys dipping into ancient Chinese and 18th- and 19th-century Western philosophy “in my leisure time,” he says with a smile.

Although neuroscience major Zhen Li ’11 enjoyed literature in high school, he admits to being nervous when he registered for 19th-Century British Literature and Society with Wendy Moffat, associate professor of English.

“I was confident with Chinese literature, but I wasn’t sure if I could do equally well [at Dickinson],” he recalled. “That was my big concern.”

So imagine his surprise last summer when he received the Stephen M. Courtland ’63 Prize, an annual award given by the English department for the best short story, essay or poem by a male student. Li is the first non-native English speaker to win.

Since childhood, Li, of Dalian, China, has had a deep interest in biology, philosophy and poetry. He was attracted to the literary concept of the sublime, and the works of philosopher Immanuel Kant and poet William Wordsworth seemed a natural fit for his research topic.

His comparative essay, “The Redefinition of Kant’s ‘Dynamic Sublime’ Model in Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey,” covered a “vast number of Wordsworth’s poems not assigned in the class,” said Moffat. “[Li] has perfect fluency; his writing and thinking impressed me.”

She found the paper so well researched and written that she nominated it for an English department prize. The Prize Committee chose Li for the Courtland Prize.

Li, who enjoys reading philosophy “in my leisure time,” sees a relationship between his successful paper and his current research on the role of neurotransmitters in the metamorphosis process of marine larvae. “What really interests me is the process of solving a problem,” he explained. “In neuroscience, there are so many things we don’t know. What I’m interested in is answering those questions.”