On the afternoon of December 27, at the 45th anniversary of the establishment of the Oriental Publishing Center and the high-quality development promotion conference, Chang Bo, general manager and deputy secretary of the Party Leadership Group of China Publishing Group, unveiled the "Oriental Reading Club", a brand reading integration and exchange platform that combines online and offline activities founded by the Oriental Publishing Center. The establishment and operation of the "Oriental Reading Club" is an important measure for the Oriental Publishing Center to fulfill its cultural mission and social responsibility, and to help the whole people read and build a scholarly society.
At 19:00 on December 27th, the first phase of the "Oriental Reading Club" was held in the Changning store of the Chinese version of the study. With the theme of "Seeing the World: New Horizons of Regional and Country Studies", the first interdisciplinary reading activity invited Professor Chen Heng of Shanghai Normal University, Professor Guo Changgang of Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, Professor Luo Gang of East China Normal University and Professor Yin Zhiguang of Fudan University to have a dialogue.
** The General Secretary pointed out that in the long course of human history, all nations of the world have created civilizations with their own characteristics and logos. Exchanges and mutual learning among different civilizations on an equal footing will provide a powerful spiritual guide for mankind to solve the problems of the times and achieve common development.
Regional country studies is an emerging discipline that is characterised by the use of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research methods to explore the history and current situation of a particular region or country. Today, how to construct regional country studies with Chinese characteristics is a topic of heated discussion in China's academic circles. At the same time, with the deepening of Sino-foreign exchanges and the continuous changes in the international situation, readers are paying more and more attention to international hotspots and countries. In this context, there is a growing demand for more in-depth, comprehensive and authoritative regional country studies books from China, scholars and readers.
Through the perspectives of different disciplines, the four scholars conducted in-depth discussions on the focus and characteristics of regional country studies.
Professor Luo Gang. From the perspective of readers, Professor Luo Gang first put forward the core topic of this reading club: why is the popularity of regional country studies in China increasing rapidly today?What are the main knowledge growth points of regional country studies in China today?What are the characteristics of the Chinese's perspective of "seeing the world"?
Professor Chen Heng. Professor Chen Heng pointed out that the predecessor of regional country studies was regional studies in Western countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States. The rise of area studies was based on the practical need for British and American hegemony over the rest of the world in the 19th and 20th centuries. Today, China has become the world's second largest economy, and with the increasing demand of Chinese to "go global", Chinese need to construct their own perspective of "seeing the world". Therefore, the establishment of regional country studies in China has been put on the agenda of the academic community.
Professor Guo Changgang.
Professor Guo Changgang said that Western countries have long adopted an attitude of contempt, contempt and discrimination towards other civilizations. China's regional studies need to abandon Western-centric notions. In recent years, global history has gradually become the mainstream paradigm of the international academic community, which advocates treating the world as a whole and attaching importance to the coexistence of multiple civilizations. China's regional studies should absorb the achievements of the global history turn, and attach importance to the concepts of "community with a shared future for mankind" and "mutual learning among civilizations".
Professor Yin Zhiguang.
Through a series of vivid examples, Professor Yin Zhiguang described the unique perspective of Chinese people "seeing the world". For example, in 1956, People** reported that workers in Shanghai made 3,000 transistors and specially treated the parts to adapt them to the hot weather in Egypt as a way to support the Egyptian people's anti-imperialist struggle to reclaim the Suez Canal. Chinese view the world from the perspective of advocating equality and opposing hegemony, and the active organization of the state is an important factor in this.
In addition, the four scholars further discussed a series of questions such as the changes in Chinese's perception of the world in different eras, China's internal world history, and globalization in people's daily lives, and answered questions from the audience on how to cultivate regional country studies talents and how to write country histories based on the perspective of global history.
Finally, the four scholars wished for the continuous progress of China's regional and country studies, and wished that the Oriental Reading Club would achieve its level and characteristics, and become a new business card of scholarly Shanghai.