The volume deals with the relationship between language, dialogue, human nature and culture by focusing on an approach that considers culture to be a crucial component of dialogic interaction. Part I refers to the so-called 'language instinct debate' between nativists and empiricists and introduces a mediating position that regards language and dialogue as determined by both human nature and culture. This sets the framework for the contributions of Part II which propose varying theoretical positions on how to address the ways in which culture influences dialogue. Part III presents more empirically oriented studies which demonstrate the interaction of components in the 'mixed game' and focus, in particular, on specific action games, politeness and selected verbal means of communication.
The challenges and changes that take place when religions move from one cultural context to another present unique opportunities for interreligious dialogue. In new cultural environments religions are not only propelled to enter into dialogue with the traditional or dominant religion of a particular culture; religions are also invited to enter into dialogue with one another about cultural changes. In this volume, scholars from different religious traditions discuss the various types of dialogue that have emerged from the process of acculturation. While the phenomenon of religious acculturation has generally focused on Western religions in non-Western contexts, this volume deals predominantly with the acculturation in the United States. It thus offers a fresh look at the phenomenon of acculturation while also lifting up an often implicit or ignored dimension of interreligious dialogue.
Vol.3, No.1 of Culture and Dialogue is a Special Issue in many ways. This issue marks the takeover by a new publisher. Because of contractual constraints and practical reasons the decision was made to continue our journey with Cambridge Scholars Publishing, whose great enthusiasm foreshadows a bright future for the journal. Our words of thanks, however, must also go to Airiti Press without which the journal would not have seen the light of day. We are indebted to Airiti Press for having invested into the launch of a new journal, with all the risks entailed, and for their dedicated hard work. We are most grateful for this. The Journal was officially launched in March 2011 and has since produced four issues, all of which focusing on a particular facet of dialogical practice within the field of culture, be it philosophy, art, or politics. Forthcoming issues will offer platforms to explore how dialogue impacts on the shaping of identity, aesthetic meaning, and historical significance. One issue will also be devoted to how dialogue manifests itself in language. This brings us to autumn 2015, after which other pressing themes will, no doubt, be proposed and treated. In whatever case, the thread remains the cultural forms of dialogue; many of us know how critical ignorance about the nature of the dialogue can be, in all fields, at all levels. Argentinian poet Antonio Porchia once wrote that “To be someone is solitude.” Any self-felt genius or world-leading mortal will identify with this. The solitude at stake is that of the one who fails to link with others, or an Other, by denying the possibility to relinquish some of him or herself. In fact, the true someone is never alone; the true someone never leads. This is the message Culture and Dialogue is striving to convey, express, or analyse in its various forms across the humanities, the arts, and the social sciences. Besides, the Journal has always sought, when possible, to preserve a certain spirit of writing in addition to academic rigour and creativity – a spirit that is undeniably fading in the midst of the publish or perish ethos adopted by advanced techno-capitalist systems of education in some parts of the world. Vol.3, No.1 is a Special Issue devoted to the theme of “religion and dialogue.” Cosimo Zene, of the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London, kindly accepted our invitation to be the Guest Editor, and our words of thanks must first go to him. Cosimo has managed to bring together a range of outstanding essays of which the Journal can only be proud. To various degrees and in different ways all essays discuss dialogue and religion, or show dialogue at work in religious studies. We are most grateful to all the authors who generously contributed to this Special Issue and therefore to the life of the Journal; in alphabetical order, T.H. Barrett, Stephen Chan, Jan-Peter Hartung, Sîan Hawthorne, Catherine Heszer, Tullio Lobetti, Theodore Proferes, and Cosimo Zene.
This book proposes an integrated constructionist approach for managing diversity. The existing frameworks for diversity management – collectivistic moral framework and individualist utilitarian framework – do not seem to be well grounded in pragmatic theory. As a result, applications and training have often been lacking in substance and relevance. The integrated constructionist approach integrates these two conflicting attitudes towards differences assuming that differences (or diversity) can be unified to minimise their negative and to maximise their positive potential. The constructionist perspective on communication and language use adds an important conceptual framework to this new approach of diversity management.
In Design Dialogue historians and curators carefully reconstruct the intercultural exchanges between Jews and gentiles in modernist Vienna. Their research examines forms and transformations of Jewish identification within multiple cultural networks, and explores images of "Jewishness" as positioned in public discourse. The novel discussions contribute to our understanding of Viennese modernism as well as its relevance to today's global community. Die Anthologie Design Dialog zielt darauf ab, die bedeutende Rolle jüdischer Mäzene, Fachleute, Architekten, Designer und Autoren bei der Gestaltung der modernen Wiener Architektur, Design und materialen Kultur herauszuarbeiten. Führende Kulturhistoriker, Museumskuratoren, Kunsthistoriker und Architekten präsentieren modernste Forschung, in der untersucht wird, wie berühmte und weniger bekannte Protagonisten neue Kultursprachen, Identifikationsformen und Netzwerke geschaffen haben, die sich in öffentlichen Debatten engagierten und zur kulturellen Erneuerung Wiens beigetragen haben – eine der bedeutendsten Städte Mitteleuropas zwischen 1800 und 1938.
Volume 3 Number 2 of Culture and Dialogue focuses on the theme of “identity and dialogue.” All the essays gathered in this volume address issues of identity with concrete examples and from different perspectives, be they art, philosophy, politics, religion, gender, or ethnic studies. All essays describe and question the relational element at work in identity formation within different cultural contexts, such as Japan, America, Corsica, Mongolia, Norway, Australia, Italy, and Ireland. Hiroshi Yoshioka offers a topical critique of what lays behind the fashionable self-portrait of Japanese cultural identity as Cool Japan in all its uniqueness. Sandra Wawrytko addresses the sensitive issue of gun culture in American identity by resorting to Mahāyāna Buddhist conceptions of failed interconnectedness. Dominique Verdoni discusses cultural identity formation with particular reference to the Corsican language and literature against the background of more dominant or regulating cultures. Angelika Böck shows how art practice can disclose the processes involved in any attempts to represent otherness, including when different groups such as Mongolian herders, Sami singers, and Australian Aboriginal hunters use other cultural codes and perspectives. Francesca Pierini critically reflects upon the culturally biased ways in which Anglo-American literature has traditionally portrayed Italian culture —an orientalised imagined identity. The selection of essays closes with Hannah Hale’s study on a very specific aspect of gender identity formation: how eating and drinking habits shape the development of masculinities within a community of students. All essays, in one way or another, disclose how identity formation is conditioned by, or emerges from, relationships between self and otherness, inside and outside, or minor and dominant cultures. As paradoxical as it may seem, the more we relate to each other, the more identity becomes an issue.
A call for a new understanding of apologetics, moving away from appeals to tran-cultural rationality, arguing for a new form of cross-cultural dialogue.
Previously published as a special issue of Mediterranean Politics, this collection critically analyzes the dynamics and complexities of the wider Euro-Mediterranean area on the basis of individual theory-informed designs and conceptual frameworks. Since the predominant focus has been on the first (political and security partnership) and the second baskets (economic and financial partnership) of the Barcelona Process, our contributors analyze social and cultural issues (the third basket of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership), drawing upon linkages between concepts, structures and policy outcomes. Some articles focus on the impact of the EU's actor capability in the area of EU policies towards the South in enhancing interregional dialogue, understanding and cultural cooperation. Others focus on a critical discourse analysis of dialogue, identity, power, human rights and civil society (including Western and non-Western conceptions). Finally, the volume culminates with a discussion on cultural democracy in Euro-Mediterranean relations.
This book addresses the potential existence of shared foundational principles in the work of Immanuel Kant and a range of African political thought, as well as their suitability in facilitating just and fair cross-cultural dialogue. The book first establishes an analytical framework grounded in a Kantian approach to understanding shared human principles, suggesting that a drive to be self-law giving may underpin all human interactions regardless of cultural background. It then investigates this assumption by carrying out a theoretical analysis of texts and speeches from a variety of African scholarship, ranging from the colonial period to the present day. The analysis, divided into three distinctive chapters covers the Négritude movement, African socialism and post-colonial philosophers, including such thinkers as: Léopold Sédar Sengor, Julius K Nyerere, Kwame Nkrumah, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Kwasi Wiredu and Kwame Gyekye. The author argues that underpinning each of their very different theoretical positions and arguments is a foundational argument for the importance of self-law giving. In doing so she highlights the need to respect this principle when embarking on cross-cultural dialogues. The book will be of interest to students and scholars in the fields of African political thought, political theory and international relations.
Cultural and spiritual resources are arguably essential to achievement of educational goals, both as economic and political initiatives and as human rights. This book addresses questions surrounding education and inter-cultural understanding in a broad global framework.
