[csaa-forum] CFP: CHINA AND THE WEST: ENCOUNTERS WITH THE OTHER IN CULTURE, ARTS, POLITICS AND EVERYDAY LIFE

[Clifton EVERS]

CALL FOR ARTICLES

EDITED VOLUME

CHINA AND THE WEST: ENCOUNTERS WITH THE OTHER IN CULTURE, ARTS, POLITICS AND EVERYDAY LIFE

Editor: Lili Hernández

Cambridge Scholars Publishing 



Our response - and sometimes reaction - to otherness reflects both our possibilities and our limitations, not only as individuals but as cultures and societies as a whole. We are either cautious in acknowledging difference, missing at times the richness that this entails or, we tend to emphasize disparities and discrepancies, building barriers in our coming together with the other. Polarities such as sameness/difference, disgust/fascination, right/wrong, connection/disconnection and progress/regress are all too human to be avoidable. Such categories are reflected in Jervis’ suggestion that otherness implies a propensity to exclude, expel, denigrate or reduce to inferior status that which does not belong to the category of ‘us’. The other is often understood as the primitive, the exotic and the irrational. Jervis suggests nevertheless that ‘the other […] retains the capacity not just to inspire fear, but to tempt and fascinate. Disgust and desire can be very close’ (Jervis, 1999, 1) .   

The aim of this volume is to present a range of topics around contemporary China as this is lived, analysed and studied from a Western perspective. The book seeks to explore the tensions, contradictions and ambiguities that arise, if at all, from the meeting point between the Eastern country and a number of Western perspectives, approaches and ways of life. The book supports a discussion about the possibility - or impossibility - of establishing a polylogue where, by acknowledging difference, voices from a variety of perspectives may be heard. 

The editor welcomes contributions which explore encounters with China from within, providing a variety of approaches in the fields of communications, arts, anthropology, translation and interpreting, cultural studies, sociology, film studies and politics.

The book comprises four thematic sections which include several papers. 

1.	Everyday Comings and Goings
2.	Of Politics and Collective Interactions
3.	Networks and Communications in China
4.	Culture, arts, images 




Scholars are welcome to submit a 300 word abstract in electronic form by Monday 1st March. Please submit your abstract as a Word Document to lili.hernandez at nottingham.edu.cn. Use Times New Roman 10 pts fonts for the main text. All text should be single-spaced. 

Abstracts should contain the following information:

*Title of paper
*Thematic section
*Name of author
*Affiliation
* Key words
*Bionote (100 words)

Authors whose abstracts are accepted will be notified by 31st March 2011
Full articles should be submitted by 15th August 2011

This book will target an academic readership from various fields such as communications, arts, anthropology, translation and interpreting, cultural studies, sociology, film studies and politics but also a general readership interested in the meeting between 21st Century China and the West.


--Dr Clifton Evers

Lecturer in Cultural and Media Studies
Division of International Communications
Room AB 425
University of Nottingham
199 Taikang East Road
Ningbo, 315100.
Zhejiang Province,
China 

T. +86(0)574 8818 0000 
F. +86(0)574 8818 0188 
www.nottingham.edu.cn