Hostname: page-component-797576ffbb-lm8cj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2023-12-08T13:28:16.839Z Has data issue: false Feature Flags: { "corePageComponentGetUserInfoFromSharedSession": true, "coreDisableEcommerce": false, "useRatesEcommerce": true } hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“What Does Heaven Ever Say?” A Methods-centered Approach to Cross-cultural Engagement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2007

LEIGH KATHRYN JENCO
LEIGH KATHRYN JENCO
Affiliation:
Brown University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

How can we conduct cross-cultural inquiry without reproducing the ethnocentric categories that prompt critique in the first place? Postcolonial and comparative political theorists have called into question the “universal” applicability of Western liberal political norms, but their critiques are drawn most often from competing Western discourses (e.g., poststructuralism) rather than from the culturally diverse traditions of scholarship whose ideas they examine. In contrast, I suggest attending to these culturally situated traditions of scholarship, especially their methods of inquiry, in addition to their substantive ideas. This method-centered approach reinterprets cross-cultural engagement, not as a tool for modifying existing parochial debates on the basis of “non-Western” cases, but as an opportunity to ask new questions through alternative frames of reference. Examining the interpretive methodologies of two Chinese classicists, I show how their methods offer not only new ideas but also new methods for the practice of political and cross-cultural theory.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 101 , Issue 4 , November 2007 , pp. 741 - 755
Copyright
© 2007 by the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ackerly Brooke. 2005. “Is Liberalism the Only Way to Democracy? Confucianism and Democracy.” Political Theory 33 (August): 547– 76.Google Scholar
Anderson Benedict. 1998. The Specter of Comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia, and the World. New York: Verso.
Angle Stephen. 2002. Human Rights and Chinese Thought: A Cross-Cultural Inquiry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bell Daniel. 1993. Communitarianism and its Critics. Oxford: Clarendon.
Bell Daniel. 2000. East Meets West: Human Rights and Democracy in East Asia. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Bell Daniel. 2006. Beyond Liberal Democracy: Political Thinking for an East Asian Context. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Berthrong John. 1994. All Under Heaven: Transforming Paradigms in Confucian-Christian Dialogue. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Benhabib Seyla. 2002. The Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global Era. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Bol Peter. 1992. This Culture of Ours: Intellectual Transitions in T'ang and Song China. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Browers Michaelle. 2006. Democracy and Civil Society in Arab Political Thought: Transcultural Possibilities. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.
Cai Renhou. 1982. (Wang Yangming on “The Study of Classics is the Study of the Heart and Mind”: Commentary on “Inscription on the ‘Respecting the Classics Pavilion at Jishan Academy’”). In (The Spiritual Direction of New Confucianism). Taipei: Xuesheng shuju.
Chakrabarty Dipesh. 2000. Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Chakrabarty Dipesh. 2002. Habitations of Modernity: Essays in the Wake of Subaltern Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Chatterjee Partha. 1993. The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Cheah Pheng. 1999. “Grounds of Comparison.” Diacritics 29 (Winter): 3– 18.Google Scholar
Cheng Zhongying, ed. 2003. (Ontology and Interpretation: Chinese-Western Comparisons). Shanghai: Shanghai Academy of the Social Sciences.
Ching Julia. 1976. To Acquire Wisdom: The Way of Wang Yangming. New York: Columbia University Press.
Cohen Paul A. 1984. Discovering History in China. New York: Columbia University Press.
Dallmayr Fred. 1996. Beyond Orientalism: Essays in Cross-Cultural Encounter. Albany: SUNY Press.
Dallmayr Fred. 1998. Alternative Visions: Paths in the Global Village. New York: Rowman and Littlefield.
de Bary William Theodore. 1989. The Message of the Mind in Neo-Confucianism. New York: Columbia University Press.
Dirlik Arif. 1984. “The Postcolonial Aura: Third World Criticism in the Age of Global Capitalism.” Critical Inquiry 20 (Winter): 328– 56.Google Scholar
Dirks Nicholas B. ed. 1992. Colonialism and Culture. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Elman Benjamin A. [1984] 2001. From Philosophy to Philology: Intellectual and Social Aspects of Change in Late Imperial China. 2nd revised ed. Los Angeles: UCLA Pacific Monograph Series.
Elman Benjamin A. 1990. Classicism, Politics, and Kinship: The Ch'ang Chou School of New Text Confucianism in Late Imperial China. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Esteva Gustavo, and Madhu Suri. 2004. “Introduction: A Dialogue with Ashis Nandy.” In Bonfire of Creeds: The Essential Ashis Nandy, ed. Ashis Nandy. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Euben Roxanne. 1997. “Comparative Political Theory: An Islamic Fundamentalist Critique of Rationalism.” Journal of Politics 59 (February): 28– 55.Google Scholar
Euben Roxanne. 1999. Enemy in the Mirror: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Limits of Modern Rationalism: A Work of Comparative Political Theory. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Euben Roxanne. 2006. Journeys to the Other Shore: Muslim and Western Travelers in Search of Knowledge. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Fox Russell Arben. 1997. “Confucian and Communitarian Responses to Liberal Democracy.” Review of Politics 59 (Summer): 561– 92.Google Scholar
Gadamer Hans-Georg. [1960] 1975. Truth and Method, trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall. New York: Continuum.
Gerring John. 2001. Social Science Methodology: A Critical Framework. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gibbard Allan. 1984. “Utilitarianism and Human Rights.” Social Philosophy and Policy 1:2 (Summer): 92– 102.Google Scholar
Godrej Farah. 2004. “Interpreting the ‘Other’: Toward a Hermeneutics of Comparative Political Thought.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago.
Hall David L., and Roger T. Ames. 1987. Thinking Through Confucius. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Henderson John B. 1991. Scripture, Canon, and Commentary: A Comparison of Confucian and Western Exegesis. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Hsiao Kung-chuan. 1975. A Modern China and a New World: K'ang Yu-wei, Reformer and Utopian 1858–1927. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Holzman Donald. 1956. “The Conversational Tradition in Chinese Philosophy.” Philosophy East and West 6 (June): 233– 30.Google Scholar
Hu Chusheng. 2002. (“The Study of the Classics is the Study of the Heart and Mind”: An Attempt to Analyze Wang Yangming and Ma Yifu's Perspectives on the Six Classics). In (Collected Papers on Classicist Research). Taipei: Xuesheng shuju.
Ivanhoe Philip J. 2002. Ethics in the Confucian Tradition. 2nd expanded ed. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Jiang Guanghui, ed. 2003. (History of Chinese Classicist Thought), vol. 1. Beijing: Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Jiang Guanghui. 2004. (Contemporary Interpretations of Classicism, Fourth Issue). Shenyang: Liaoning Education Press.
John Paul II. 2001. “Dialogue Between Cultures for a Civilization of Love and Peace: Message for the Celebration of the World Day of Peace, 2001.” Vatican Web site. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/messages/peace/documents/hf_jp-ii_mes_20001208_ xxxiv-world-day-for-peace_en.htm.Google Scholar
Kang Youwei. [1891] 1956. (Examination of the False Classics of the Xin Learning). Beijing: Xinhua shudian.
Kang Youwei. [1923] 1968. (Research on Confucius as a Reformer). Beijing: n.p.
Kubin Wolfgang. 2005. “‘Chinese Hermeneutics’—A Chimera? Preliminary Remarks on Differences of Understanding.” In Interpretation and Intellectual Change: Chinese Hermeneutics in Historical Perspective, ed. Ching-I Tu. London: Transaction Publishers.
Leslie Isis. 2007. “Internationalizing Political Theory Courses.” PS: Political Science and Politics 40 (January): 108– 10.Google Scholar
Liang Qichao. 1985. (Outline of Qing Dynasty Scholarship). In (Two Tracts by Liang Qichao on the History of Qing Studies), ed. Zhu Weijing. Shanghai: Fudan University Press.
Lin Qiyan. 1994. (History of Chinese Scholarship and Thought). 2nd ed. Taipei: Shulin.
Liu Lydia. 1995. Translingual Practice: Literature, Culture, and Translated Modernity: China, 1900-1937. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.
Liu Xiaogan. 2004. (Classical Interpretation and a Systematic Framework: The Maturation of the Traditions of Chinese Philosophical Interpretation, and Some Particular Personal Views). In Li Minghui ed. (Methods of Confucian Classical Interpretation). Taipei: National Taiwan University Press.
Ma Honglin. 1992–3. (Kang Youwei's Remolding of Confucius). In (Selected Essays on the History of Chinese Classicism), ed. Lin Qingzhang . Taipei: Wen Shi Zhe Press.
MacIntyre Alasdair. 1984. After Virtue. 2nd ed. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
Mahmood Saba. 2005. Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Makeham John. 2003. Transmitters and Creators: Chinese Commentators and Commentaries on the Analects. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Mohanty Chandra Talpade. 1984. “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses. boundary 2 12– 13 (Spring-Fall): 333– 58.Google Scholar
Mou Zongsan. 1963. (The Characteristics of Chinese Philosophy). Hong Kong: Rensheng Press.
Mou Zongsan. 1968–69. (Ontological Mind and Ontological Nature). Taipei: Zhengzhong Shuju.
Nandy Ashis. 2004. “Cultural Frames for Social Transformation: A Credo.” In Bonfire of Creeds: The Essential Ashis Nandy. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Ng On-cho. 2005. “Affinity and Aporia: A Confucian Engagement with Gadamer's Hermeneutics.” In Interpretation and Intellectual Change: Chinese Hermeneutics in Historical Perspective, ed. Ching-I. Tu. London: Transaction Publishers.
Nylan Michael. 2001. The Five “Confucian” Classics. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Panikkar Raimundo. 1988. “What is Comparative Philosophy Comparing?” In Interpreting Across Boundaries: New Essays in Comparative Philosophy, ed. Gerald James Larson and Eliot Deutsch. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Parekh Bhikhu. 1999. “Non-Ethnocentric Universalism.” In Human Rights in Global Politics, ed. Tim Dunne and Nicholas J. Wheeler. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Prakash Gyan. 1992. “Writing Post-Orientalist Histories of the Third World: Indian Historiography is Good to Think.” In Colonialism and Culture, ed. Nicholas Dirks. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Prakash Gyan. 1994. “Subaltern Studies as Postcolonial Criticism.” American Historical Review 99 (December): 1475– 90.Google Scholar
Pusey James. 1983. China and Charles Darwin. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Ricoeur Paul. 1981. “The Model of the Text: Meaningful Action Considered as a Text.” In Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences, ed. trans. John B. Thompson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rudolph Susanne. 2005. “The Imperialism of Categories: Situating Knowledge in a Globalizing World.” APSA Presidential Address. Perspectives on Politics 3 (March): 5– 14.Google Scholar
Said Edward. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Random House-Pantheon.
Sanders Lynn. 1997. “Against Deliberation.” Political Theory 25 (June): 347– 76.Google Scholar
Segesvary Victor. 2000. Dialogue of Civilizations: An Introduction to Civilizational Analysis. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
Skinner Quentin. 1970. “Conventions and the Understanding of Speech Acts.” Philosophical Quarterly 20 (April): 118– 38.Google Scholar
Skinner Quentin. 2002. Visions of Politics. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Spivak Gayatri Chakravorty. 1988. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” In Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, ed. Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Todorov Tzvetan. 1983. The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other. Trans. Richard Howard. New York: Harper and Row.
Wang Ermin. 1995. (“Tuogu Gaizhi” Theories of Qing-era Reformers). In (History of Late Qing Political Thought). Taipei: Taiwan Commercial Press.
Wang Juntao. 2003. “Confucian Democrats in Chinese History.” In Confucianism for the Modern World, ed. Daniel Bell and Hahm Chaibong. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wang Junyun. 2003. (Conversing with the Text: An Analysis of the Insights of Gadamer's Hermeneutical Method for Chinese Philosophy). In (Ontology and Interpretation: Chinese-Western Comparisons), ed. Cheng Zhongying . Shanghai: Shanghai Academy of the Social Sciences.
Wang Meng'ou, ed. 1970. (The Book of Rites, Modern Annotated Edition). Taipei: Shangwu.
Wang Yangming. 1963. Instructions for Practical Living, and Other Neo-Confucian Writing, ed. trans. Wing-tsit Chan. New York: Columbia University Press.
Wang Yangming 1983. (Chuan Xi Lu, with Detailed Notes and Collected Critical Commentary). ed. Wing-tsit Chan. Taipei: Xuesheng shuju.
Wilson Thomas A. 1995. Genealogy of the Way: the Construction and Uses of the Confucian Tradition in Late Imperial China. Sanford: Stanford University Press.
Woodside Alexander. 1998. “Reconciling the Chinese and Western Theory Worlds in an Era of Western Development Fatigue (A Comment).” Modern China 24 (April): 121– 34.Google Scholar
Xu Fuguan. 1982. (Foundations of the History of Chinese Classicism). Taipei: Xuesheng shuju.
Yan Zheng. 2001. (Philosophy of the Five Classics with a Cultural Studies Explanation). Ji'nan: Jilu shushe.
Young Iris. 1996. “Communication and the Other: Beyond Deliberative Democracy.” In Democracy and Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political, ed. Seyla Benhabib. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Young Iris. 2000. Inclusion and Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Zhu Weizheng . 2002. (Ten Lectures on the History of Chinese Classicism). Shanghai: Fudan University Press.