Abstract:
Rhetoric includes poetics, the production of texts, as well as aesthetics, the analysis and appreciation of texts. But rhetorics vary from one culture to another. Each culture has its own hermeneutic circle for interpreting its own cultural references, but one culture’s hermeneutics may not be commensurable with another culture’s literary traditions or imaginaire. Each culture has its own semiotic system, or semiosphere, but apparently similar signs may have very different connotations across cultures. For all of these reasons, and more, the field of comparative cultural studies requires an interdisciplinary approach as well as a cross-cultural approach in order to come to terms with the varieties of cultural manifestations that are grounded in specific cultures, and to respect such cultural production on its own terms, in one native context, while comparing them to the terms of a different native context.
About the Speaker:
International & Intercultural Studies (UAB); Director, Asia Programme, CIDOB Foundation, Barcelona; Member of the Board of Advisers, Casa Asia (Asia House), Barcelona; Member of the Board, Venice International University. Ph.D. in English Literature, Universitat de Connecticut (USA). Research projects: edition, commentary & translation of the classical Chinese texts Sunzi bingfa & Laozi daodejing; study of the sociolinguistic profile of the Chinese-speaking community in Catalonia (Spain); non-European translation studies; Chinese-European & Arabic-European cross-cultural transfer. Director, Asia Seminar, Menéndez-Pelayo International University in Barcelona: Asia Today. Postcolonialism and the New World Order (2002), Multilateralism versus Unilateralism in Asia: The International Weight of “Asian Values” (2003); Development and Transition in Asia (2004); Regionalism and Development in Asia: Models, Tendencies & Processes (2005); Development in Asia: Risk Scenarios & Opportunities (2006); Civil Society & Governance in China, India & Southeast Asia (2009). Co-organiser, 7th ASEF University, Barcelona, November 2002.
Comparative Rhetorics, Hermeneutics and Semiotics in Intercultural Communication