Speaker: Danny Hsu (Dalian University of Foreign Languages)

Date: May 14, 2015 - Thursday

Time: 18:30 – 20:00

Venue: R604, Run Run Shaw Library, Hongkou Campus

Language: English

Summary: Recent work in the field of cross-cultural psychology and intercultural communication study has called for a more dynamic and hybridized understanding of Chinese culture, especially in light of the ever-increasing interconnectedness of the world.  While China today is unquestionably experiencing, in scope and intensity, a unique phase of deep interaction with many cultures, this should be understood as but the latest instance of China’s long historical engagement with the world. In fact, the emergence of modern China simply cannot be understood apart from the country’s efforts to assimilate and appropriate various aspects of the Western model.

Thus, this talk has two aims. First, in the spirit of exploring avenues for further promoting interdisciplinary cross-fertilization, the Speaker would like to make a first attempt at further integrating the current work on the hybridized and dynamic nature of contemporary Chinese culture with work on Chinese culture in the more traditional fields of Chinese studies. Second, the Speaker argues that the fact that the ideals of the nation-state and modernity (as embodied in the Western historical experience) have so deeply influenced (since the late nineteenth century) and produced a hybridized Chinese culture presents a strong argument for the continuing relevance of Western social science theory to the understanding of Chinese culture and society, and not the opposite. While not meant to be construed as an argument for the indiscriminate application of Western social science theory, given the hybrid nature of modern Chinese culture, the fashionable call among some Chinese academics for the urgency to develop indigenously generated theory to describe the Chinese experience deserves greater critical scrutiny.

Speaker Biography: Dr. Danny Hsu（徐欣吾）received his PhD in Chinese history from the University of California at Los Angeles. He has published on the relationship between state-society relations and legal reform, Chinese national identity, and most recently, on Chinese religious culture. He was previously an assistant professor of world history at Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan and is currently teaching in the School of English Studies at Dalian University of Foreign Languages.