Transcultural Connections Australia And China

This book is a unique and original contribution to the knowledge of transcultural engagement between the ‘East’ and the ‘West’; notably between China and Australia.The collection explores how the global system universally interrelates East and West, showing how this interrelatedness offers the promise of progress but can evoke the counteracting trend of tribal nationalism. The book addresses the connectedness of human progress by exploring how globalization creates new dynamic interfaces between East and West and how rather than clashes of culture there are growing forms of reciprocity between civilizations and a shared awareness of how humanity is connected through knowledge and international mobility.

This book is a unique and original contribution to the knowledge of transcultural engagement between the 'East' and the 'West'; notably between China and Australia. The collection explores how the global system universally interrelates East and West, showing how this interrelatedness offers the promise of progress but can evoke the counteracting trend of tribal nationalism. The book addresses the connectedness of human progress by exploring how globalization creates new dynamic interfaces between East and West and how rather than clashes of culture there are growing forms of reciprocity between civilizations and a shared awareness of how humanity is connected through knowledge and international mobility.

This book is a distinctive collection on transcultural encounters in knowledge production and consumption, which are situated at the heart of pursuit for cognitive justice. It uniquely represents transcultural dialogues between academics of Australia, China and Malaysia, located on the borders of different knowledge systems. The uniqueness of this volume lies in the convergence of transcultural perspectives, which bring together diverse disciplines as cultural studies, education, media, translation theory and practice, arts, musicology, political science and literature. Each chapter explores the possibility of decolonising the knowledge production space as well as research methodologies. The chapters engage with ‘Chinese’ and ‘western’ thought on transcultural subjects and collectively articulate a new politics of difference, de-centring the dominant epistemologies and research paradigms in the global academia. Refracted through transcultural theories and practices, adapted to diverse traditions, histories and regional affiliations, and directed toward an international transcultural audience, the volume demonstrates expansive possibilities in knowledge production and contributes to the understanding of and between research scholarship which deals with collective societal and cultural challenges within the globalised world we live in. It would be of interest to researchers engaged with current critical debates in general and global scholars in transcultural and intercultural studies in specific.

Wei Shi’s well-crafted study weaves together historical context, ideological complexities, and insightful case studies on Confucian metaphysics, ethics, and politics. Engagingly written, it seamlessly bridges the gap between universal and nationalist (particular) perspectives, offering a rich tapestry of ideas and satisfying unity. Shi describes the profound impact of Confucian revival on China's cultural identity. She argues that Confucian ideas continue to shape China's trajectory in an ever-changing world. Specialists, graduate students, and enthusiasts will find this work an invaluable resource in understanding the multifaceted landscape of China’s Confucian revival in the twenty-first century.

This book explores and brings to light untold stories from the margins of Chinese society. It investigates and reveals grassroots and popular cultural beliefs, amusing anecdotes, items of lore, and accounts of the strange and the unusual. It delves into questions of identity formation, considering gender, sexuality, class, generational divides, subcultures, national minorities and online communities. It examines heritage-making practices and the persistence of marginalized memories. Bringing together views from cultural studies, literature, gender studies, cultural heritage, sociology, history and more, the book argues that neither the margins nor the centre can be understood in isolation, and that by focusing on the margins, a fuller picture of Chinese society overall emerges, including new perspectives on spatial and social marginality, on hierarchies of marginality, and on neglected spaces, voices and identities.

This book delves into the Australia-China relationship, which is currently at its worst since 1972, when the two countries first established a diplomatic relationship. Australia is seen by the US as its front-line ally in its fight in containing China. Derived from an international symposium organized by the editorial team and held in Adelaide, South Australia in September 2021, these essays are an attempt to offer some understanding and explanations for the deterioration of Sino-Australian ties. It is also an attempt to explore the ways by which the two countries can reach some common ground for the future. Despite our very different pasts, can we seek out a shared future together, a future that avoids a war, hot or cold, between a rising power of China and the incumbent US hegemon?

This unique book starts from the premise that students, scholars, and educators should be given access to a form of global education that is genuinely global. Using the notion of interculturality as change and exchange as a basis, the authors examine fifty discourse instruments (e.g. idioms, neologisms, slogans) related to what they call ‘Chinese stories of interculturality’. China, like other countries, has a rich and complex history of intercultural encounters and her engagement with the notion today, which shares similarities and differences with glocal discourses of interculturality, deserves to be unpacked and familiarized with. By so doing, digging into the intricacies of the Chinese and English languages, the reader is empowered to unthink, rethink and especially reflect on their own take on the important notion of interculturality.

"The impressive and stimulating essays in Bridging Transcultural Divides deal with the cultural and educational issues in the Australian context. (...) The books central message is that education for Asian students in Australia, and more broadly in the West, can no longer been seen as a one-way transfer of knowledge, but must be understood as a process of reciprocal learning in which both teachers and students are changed by the experience." - Prof. Tim Wright, University of Sheffield.