China Research Seminar Series talk given by Prof. Yan Haiping, Professor of Cross-Cultural Studies, Tsinghua Academy
By evoking a specific Chinese text and its utopian portrait of the peoples of the earth living together without racial, national, or cultural divides that surfaced, almost miraculously, at the height of Chinese resistance to the Japanese invasion of the 1930s, this talk re-contextualizes such a portrait involving tormented histories into a prism in the light of which prevalent statements of “cosmopolitanism as universalism” appear to echo rather than transcend parochial nationalism. Arguing that figures previously conceived as nationalist can also be thought of as cosmopolitans, this talk suggests a tradition of cosmopolitanism that is both Chinese and cross-cultural, with the help of which variable cross-cultural possibilities of humanistic studies, and humanistic education, may be revisited and reimaged.
In case some of you might not be familiar with Professor Yan Haiping's work, here are a couple of links to pages describing her work: