Dr. Li Dan is professor of Chinese Literature in the College of Humanities and Communications at Shanghai Normal University, China. She was appointed the Chinese director of the Confucius Institute at the University of MIssouri from 2015-2017. She is the author of 44 academic articles and one book, Approaching to the Poetics. We spoke at the University of Missouri Confucius Institute on November 21, the anniversary of the death of Confucius.