New Dictionary of Cultural Studies

Author: Li Pengcheng, Editor-in-Chief
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-02-01
Features: This dictionary is a compact reference tool, primarily designed to provide essential, concise foundational knowledge for readers such as theoretical workers, enthusiasts of philosophy and humanities, university students, humanities graduate students, and university faculty who wish to gain knowledge about modern and contemporary Western thought and culture. Cultural studies is an academic endeavor with a broad scope and varying degrees of intellectual depth. Since the May Fourth New Culture Movement, China has regarded "cultural" thought and "cultural" movements as fundamental to the nation's and the country's development. Over the past eighty-plus years, Chinese people, caught between traditional and modern cultures, as well as between indigenous and foreign cultures, have always strived to find an effective and rapid path for the survival and development of their nation through cultural studies. Whenever society and social thought undergo major transformations, all thoughts and academic research are transformed into "cultural studies," as cultural studies, in a sense, represent comprehensive research and foundational depth. This is the general reason behind the several major waves of cultural studies that have in China over the decades. It should be noted that since the Opium War in 1840, every issue in China, including cultural issues, has been intertwined with the relationship between Eastern and Western cultures. In other words, all of China's big and small problems are complexly situated in the massive vortex of the collision, mutual influence, conflict, and integration of Eastern and Western cultures. To clarify the foundational context of all issues, each period of Chinese people in the past century has strived to find the key to explaining the relationship between Eastern and Western cultures. Our predecessors endured intellectual hardships and sorrows, the pursuit of liberation and the search for norms, failures and successes, and learned lessons as well as gained experience. It is precisely in these failures and successes, in these lessons and experiences, that our nation's cultural thought has matured. However, even today, we are still seeking the best ideas and answers, as well as effective methods, to properly handle the relationship between Eastern and Western cultures in the new era of the new century. This is the motivation and reason for continuing cultural studies today. Since contemporary Chinese culture, in a certain sense, has already become a "hybrid" of Eastern and Western cultures, one fundamental method in the study of Chinese culture is "knowing oneself and knowing others," which means continuously understanding Western thought and culture. We should not only understand ancient Western culture, the modern culture that emerged after the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment, but also "keep pace with the times" by understanding modern and contemporary Western culture. This is the main reason for compiling this modest dictionary. The dictionary is structured around three main frameworks: Western cultural anthropology, Western modern and postmodern cultural trends, and "Western Marxism" cultural theory. It provides concise explanations of the basic content of major trends in contemporary Western cultural thought, as well as their historical development, representative ideas of different schools, the lives and major works of key figures in major schools, major academic concepts, major events, and major debates.