22 Feb 2007

The Formation and Development of Academic Disciplines in China Project
Faculty of Asian Studies, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
Supplied note: "The Project seeks to construct a historically informed multidisciplinary framework to examine the complex processes by which traditional Chinese knowledge systems and indigenous grammars of knowledge construction jointly interacted with Western paradigms to shape the formation and development of modern academic disciplines in China. This framework will in turn be used to explain how the mutual interaction of traditional Chinese and modern Western knowledge paradigms and practices shaped the formation and development of modern academic disciplines in China. - jm."
Self-description: "Specifically, the Project seeks * to understand and analyze how traditional forms of Chinese scholarship were adapted to new knowledge paradigms; * to identify the role played by indigenous "grammars," or standards of rational justification, in shaping the formation of academic disciplines, and the concrete forms in which these grammars interacted with western paradigms and concepts; * to demonstrate how indigenous grammars of knowledge construction, and their ongoing complex interaction with western paradigms, decisively influenced the formation and development of individual academic disciplines; and * to examine the significance of the growing trend toward the indigenization (bentuhua) of knowledge systems and how it relates to broader contemporary concerns about the indigenization of knowledge in many social science and humanities disciplines. The Project consists of eight disciplinary nodes: anthropology, architecture, Chinese history, Chinese literature, Chinese philosophy, linguistics, religious studies, and sociology. Node membership is drawn from a network of researchers in the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, and North America. [...]
The project has eight node coordinators: * Scott Davis (Miyazaki International College, Japan), Anthropology; * Arif Dirlik (University of Oregon), Sociology; * Stanislaus Fung (University of New South Wales), Architecture; * Andy Kirkpatrick (Hong Kong Institute of Education), Linguistics; * Wolfgang Kubin (Bonn University), Chinese Literary Criticism; * Brian Moloughney (Victoria University of Wellington), Chinese History; * John Makeham (Australian National University), Chinese Philosophy; * Lauren Pfister (Hong Kong Baptist University), Religious Studies.
Over the next three years (2007-2009) representatives and members from each node will participate in an annual Workshop that brings all nodes together: Year 1 (2007) Theme: The transition from traditional knowledge schema and knowledge practices to new epistemologies. [...] Year 2 (2008) Theme: Terminological and disciplinary demarcation [...] Year 3 (2009) Theme: The creation of "academics" and the formation of seminal institutions.
[...] The 2007 Workshop will be convened at the Australian National University, 3-5 December 2007. It will provide the first opportunity for individual nodes to meet. [...]."
Site contents: * Overview of the project; * A list of participants; * Submitted abstracts; * Our contact details.
URL http://academicdisciplines-china.anu.edu.au/
Internet Archive (www.archive.org) [the site was not archived at the time of this abstract]
Link reported by: John Makeham (John.Makeham--at--anu.edu.au)
* Resource type [news/comments - documents - study - corporate info. - online guide]: Corporate info.
* Publisher [academic - business - govt. - library/museum - NGO - other]: Academic
* Scholarly usefulness [essential - v.useful - useful - interesting - marginal]: Useful
* External links to the resource [over 3,000 - under 3,000 - under 1,000 - under 300 - under 100 - under 30]: under 30