This discussion considers key issues common to scholars interested in the role of culture, especially the changing mentality as seen through popular culture, social media and political thoughts, in understanding how Western and Chinese cultures may or may not clash in the possible future.
The case of Hong Kong poses an imminent warning to the liberal world that any naive understanding based on cosmopolitanism among intellectuals may bring further obstacles, if not threats, to some organizing principles of modernity like liberty, equality, and rationality. The current discussion seeks to explore why the case of Hong Kong, particularly the events of 2019 as a watershed moment, is important for scholars to understand. By focusing on the role of nationalism, especially two different types of nationalism, as well as the long-forgotten concept of civilization theorized here as enduring patterns of thinking, this discussion may shed light on key issues common to scholars interested in the role of culture, especially the changing mentality as seen through popular culture, social media and political thoughts, in understanding how Western and Chinese cultures may or may not clash in the possible future.
About the Speaker
CHEUNG Yuk Man is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of International Relations at the Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, Japan. He specializes in cultural and historical sociology, urban sociology, sociology of education, cultural institutionalism, as well as modern Japan and Hong Kong. He obtained his PhD from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His recent research interests include nationalism/cosmopolitanism in East Asia, the translation of modernity in East Asia as seen from Japanese cultural industry and subcultures of anime, games, and illustrated novels, the temporal reconfiguration of cultural and social theory, and civilization studies.
Event Speakers
CHEUNG Yuk Man is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of International Relations at the Ritsumeikan University