Closing Ceremony Lecture: The Crisis of Modernity in China |
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VIU closes the Spring 2010 edition of the Semester Program and the Globalization Program with a public lecture by Prof. Sean Golden (UAB) and Prof. Tiziana Lippiello (Ca' Foscari). Following the lecture there will be the presentation of "Mapping Contemporary Venice" a creativity project developed with Moleskine®, the presentation of the "Maria Weber Scholarwhip" and other student awards and presentations.
5.00 pm Mapping contemporary Venice is a project, launched by VIU and Moleskine®, to discover and narrate a new visual collective imaginary of contemporary Venice. Using the The Moleskine® notebook as their principal medium, groups of students from different backgrounds have mapped contemporary Venice, reinterpreting it according to their creativity and cultural background.
7.30 pm The Crisis of Modernity in China 'Modernity' as a product of the Euroamerican tradition of the Enlightenment (modern scientific revolution, free market economics, liberal parliamentary democracy, world order based on nation-states) was introduced to China by the force of arms, through opium wars, armed intervention in domestic affairs, control of large sections of Chinese territory, and economic exploitation of Chinese resources, agricultural production, manufacturing, transport, customs services and markets. China's response to the challenge posed by Euroamerican modernity has grown out of her own cultural and historical circumstances, and may represent an alternative modernity, or an alternartive path to modernity, perhaps a 'Confucian modernity', that challenges the supremacy of the Euroamerican version.
Sean Golden is full professor of East Asian Studies at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, where he is Director of the Institute for International and Intercultural Studies. He has published on modernity and post-modernity in China, Chinese culture and East-West dialogue, and Tradition, modernity and ideology in the era of globalization. He is teaching two courses during the Spring 2010 semester of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences of VIU: Asia and Euroamerica: Alternative Paths toward Modernity? and Colonialist Discourse in Asia and at Home.
China in search of its lost identity - the Way of the Golgen Age: When Obama went to China in November 2009, he quoted an aphorism from Confucius' Analects: "He who reviews the past in order to understand the present can be considered a Master." (溫故而知新，可以為師矣). In fact the aphorism was properly selected. Since the last decade of the XX century China has started a process of reconstruction of its own identity, a cultural identity but also a new concept of modernity, not imported from the West. This process started in the Academic circles (first in Taiwan, Hong Kong and later in Mainland China) and was then transferred to the public and political sphere. The lecture will explore the cultural and social implications of the phenomenon in contemporary China.
Tiziana Lippiello is full professor at the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures at Università Ca' Foscari, where she is also Chair of the Department of East-Asian Studies and Delegate of the President of Ca' Foscari University for the relations with VIU. She has published on religion and philosophy of China, in particular on Confucianism and rites, customs and traditions of Ancient China. The lecture will be in English and is open to the public. |
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