An Examination on Chinese Alternative Discourses : Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Chinese Nationalism, Postmodernism, and Neo-Confucianism

ISBN-13: 9783639153897 / Angielski / Miękka / 2009 / 144 str.

Pi-Chun Chang

Opis

The idea of alternative modernities arise from the context that modernization means processes of westernization. Although Chinese modernization was believed to be based on learning from the West from its outset, contemporary Chinese intellectuals contend that the Chinese experience of modernity is not merely a variation of Western modernity. Drawing from different theoretical inspirations, Chinese intellectuals claimed that China has its model of modernization, buttressed by a restoration of Chinese culture. This study calls to question such an alternative discourse for its assertion of Chinese essence becomes another form of Orientalism. This work aims to address how contemporary Chinese intellectuals anxiety to valorize Chinese difference in the idea of Chinese alternative bespeaks a dichotomous way of thinking. It argues that Chinese alternative modernity emphasizes the essence of traditional culture. Such an alternative discourse replicates Orientalist mode of Self/Other confrontation which Chinese intellectuals accuse the West of employing as a way of understanding non-Western cultures.

O autorze

Pi-Chun Chang got her Ph.D. from State University of New York at
Buffalo. She now is an assistant professor in Department of East
Asian Culture and Development at National Taiwan Normal
University. Her research and teaching interests are East Asian
cultural studies and cultural policies.