|
|
|
| Reasons for and Approaches to the Studies of Cross-Cultural History |
| WANG Ling |
| School of Foreign Languages, Yunnan University, Kunming, Yunnan, 650091 |
|
|
|
|
Abstract In making sense of otherness, we should pay attention to three characteristics of culture: a system of meanings, subjectivity, and being ruled by a peculiar dialectic. The attention to global history can be explained by two human motivations: One is the perennial quest for universal ideas and ideals, and the other is to bring the writing of history closer to the scientific model, and help peoples to transcend divisions and share a sense of human solidarity. The researchers into the history of intercultural encounters need to attend to three subjectivities in order to expose both cultures’ inner cores inhabited by their respective assumptions about the world, society and order, understand the reasons for frequent resistance to otherness, and peek into the space where local and global histories overlap. The approaches to overcoming the challenges to the studies of cross-cultural history lie in enhancing interdisciplinary awareness, and concentrating on the mutuality and space of culture change triggered by cultural difference. Any acculturation is accompanied by deculturation. The efforts to preserve the diversity of world cultures will be more advisable than the unifying attempts. Contradictory values will coexist. The tolerance based on understanding otherness will be more promising than the attempts to homogenize. Cross-cultural history can serve as a link between local and global histories, and a cognitive point of departure for increasing understanding among societies, but only at the local dimensions can the full depth of its meanings be accessed. The studies of cross-cultural history can bridge the gap between the essential preservationism of an individual culture and the globalization process that exacts change in its preserving structure. The injection of otherness will turn into culture change when it is domesticated into normalness, so the researchers should examine the local dimensions of both the exporter and the recipient, and the cross-cultural communication process of forming shared meanings, negotiating identities, expressing beliefs, reproducing values, and molding symbolic representations of reality and order.
|
|
Received: 08 July 2022
|
|
|
|
|
|
[1] Schuetz, Alfred.The Stranger:An Essay in Social Psychology[J].The American Journal of Sociology,1944,49(6):499.
[2] Cornell, Saul.Early American History in a Postmodern Age[J].The William and Mary Quarterly,1993,50(2):329-341.
[3] Rozbicki, Michal,Ndege, George (Eds). Cross-Cultural History and the Domestication of Otherness[C].New York: Palgrave Macmillan,2012.
[4] Hopkins, Anthony(Ed). Global History: Interactions between the Universal and the Local[C].New York:Palgrave Macmillan,2006.
[5] Shaw,David.Modernity between Us and Them:The Place of Religion within History[J].History and Theory,2006,45:3.
[6] Yerxa, Donald (Ed). Recent Themes in World History and the History of the West:Historians in Conversation[C].Columbia:the University of South Carolina Press,2009.1.
[7] McNeill, William.The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Condition Community[M].Chicago:the University of Chicago Press,1963.216-218.
[8] McNeill, William. Afterword: World History and Globalization[A].Anthony Hopkins(Ed).Global History:Interactions between the Universal and the Local[C].New York:Palgrave Macmillan,2006.286.
[9] Chabal,Patrick,and Daloz,Jean-Pascal.Culture Troubles:Politics and the Interpretation of Meaning[M].Chicago: the University of Chicago Press,2006.65.
[10] Christian,David.The Return of Universal History[J].History and Theory,2010,(49).
[11] Spier, Fred.The Structure of Big History: From the Big Bang until Today[M].Amsterdam: the University of Amsterdam Press,1996.72-76.
[12] Wood, Alan. Fire, Water,Earth,Sky:Global Systems History and the Human Prospect[J].The Journal of the Hi-storical Society,2010,10(3):289-313.
[13] Bradford, William.Of Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647[M].New York: Knopf,1952.81.
[14] Lefort, Claude.Democracy and Political Theory[M].Cambridge:Polity,1988.93.
[15] Kammen,Michael(Ed).Maryland in 1699:A Letter from the Reverend Hugh Jones[J].The Journal of Southern History,1963,29(3):372.
[16] Haupt, Heinz-Gerhard,Kocka, Jurgen.Comparative History:Methods, Aims,Problems[A].Deborah Cohen and Maura O’Connor(Eds).Comparison and History: Europe in Cross-National Perspective[C].New York:Routledge,2004. 32-33.
[17] Todorov, Tzvetan.The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other[M].New York:Harper,1984.248.
[18] Eagleton,Terry.The Idea of Culture[M].Oxford:Blackwell,2009.39.
[19] Derrida, Jacques.Of Grammatology[M].Baltimore: the Jo-hns Hopkins University Press,1997. 65.
[20] Ting-Toomey, Stella.Qualitative Research:An Overview[A].William Gudykunst and Young Yun Kim(Eds).Methods for Intercultural Communication Research[C].Beverly Hills:Sage,1984.169-184.
[21] Eliade, Mircea.The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion[M].New York:Harcourt,1987.10-18.
[22] Hall,Stuart.Culture, the Media and the Ideological Effect[A].James Curran et al.(Eds).Mass Communication and Society[C].London:Edward Arnold,1977.328.
[23] Gudykunst,William(Ed).Cross-Cultural and Intercultural Communication[C].Thousand Oaks:Sage,2003.167-168.
[24] McNeill, William. Polyethnicity and National Unity in World History[M].Toronto:the University of Toronto Press,1986.6-13.
[25] Stoczkowski,Wiktor.Claude Levi-Strauss and UNESCO[J].The UNESCO Courier,2008,(5):6-8.
[26] Grew, Raymond.On the Prospect of Global History[A]. Bruce Mazlish and Ralph Buultjens(Eds).Conceptualizing Global History[C].Boulder:Westview,1993.244.
[27] Cohen, Deborah,O’Connor, Maura (Eds). Comparison and History: Europe in Cross-National Perspective[C].New York:Routledge,2004.xiii. |
|
|
|
2022, Vol. 39 
