Interview Transcript of Cultural Studies

Author: Xie Shaobo
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-06-01
Features: To improve one's ability to identify problems, one must first enhance their theoretical cultivation. This requires adopting an attitude of openness and absorbing advanced achievements, much like in economic development. When it comes to introducing critical theory, a dialectical understanding is also necessary. Because no culture can exist in isolation; it must engage with other cultures. This is a written interview between Canadian-Chinese scholar Xie Shaobo and Chinese scholar Wang Fengzhen, consisting of thirty-three questions that touch upon modernity, postmodernity, culture, history, ideology, globalization, universities, and intellectuals. The interviewees are a group of renowned intellectuals in North America, who selectively answered these questions. These responses form a loose, tolerant, and inclusive forum. From these answers, it becomes clear that rather than having unified and timely answers to contemporary urgent issues in cultural politics, these issues will likely remain a long-standing area of debate. These debates constitute a vast and enduring intellectual space worthy of continuous exploration, and contemporary cultural studies are precisely the historical examination of this space.