Cultural Identity in the Era of Globalization: A Historical Reflection on Western Universalist Discourse Author: Zhang Xudong

As the third volume of the "Zhang Xudong Works Series", this book is expanded and revised based on his lecture notes for doctoral courses at Peking University and New York University. It helps students systematically understand contemporary theories and the social history and political philosophy behind them through seven classes, five thinkers, and nearly twenty key concepts involved in ten works. The book also includes Peking University Q&A, which allows readers to understand what young students think and ask about the various issues in the book and the current situation in China, and how the author responds to these views and questions.

The book is an introductory course on classic Western thought, and also a monograph on the history of ideas and cultural criticism on core issues of modernity, such as the modern state and the individual, the self and the other, the universal and the particular. In the specific social and historical context of modern Europe, especially Germany, the book introduces and interprets the classic texts of a series of thinkers such as Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Weber, and Schmitt, grasps the inherent connection between their theoretical expressions and the rise of modern nations and countries, and pays more attention to understanding their profound self-criticism and cultural reflection on various ideological confusions and real crises in the modern world.

This book shows the unremitting questioning of "how to be a modern German" by generations of thinkers, and provides a method and possibility to reread the classics of Western thought in the context of globalization and understand the ideological logic and historical roots of the development of the modern world. Western universalist discourse has never been achieved overnight. It is the product of a dynamic process of continuous development and improvement, and this process is still continuing today. In other words, some of today's Western universal concepts or universalist discourses may be the result of a pursuit of cultural autonomy in the history of yesterday.

Recommended by experts:

This is a rare book worth reading. Through the author's unique narrative of the history of thought, I think what he suggests is that it is not the abstract universal (liberals), not the cultural particular (New Left), not the universal dominating the particular, nor the particular presenting or resisting the universal, but the particular improving and enriching the universal. This is the creative path of China's modernization and its significance to mankind.

——Li Zehou

This is a theoretical work that explores cultural identity in the era of globalization. Through a penetrating interpretation of modern Western thought, the author systematically explains the cultural and political issues under the conditions of globalization. In terms of the depth of the discussion, the breadth of vision, the clarity of expression and the coherence of theory, this book is a rare work in the Chinese world; the questions it raises are unavoidable for anyone who cares about this issue - whether they agree or disagree with its position.

——Wang Hui

The identity crisis of Chinese culture is the biggest challenge faced by Chinese scholars in the past three thousand years. Since the late Qing Dynasty, Chinese scholars with a sense of the times have all taken on the historical mission of "the southern barbarians and the northern barbarians are in contact, and China is as close as a thread" with their own academic ability. Based on the academic context after modernity and in-depth research on the self-awareness of the modern West, Professor Zhang Xudong, through the interpretation of a series of modern Western classics, urges us to reconsider the political subjectivity of Chinese culture in today's cultural situation. The Chinese issue has always been a model of modernity issues. This book transforms comparative literature into political philosophy, and its thinking on this issue with the same fresh and lively style as always can be regarded as a model of political philosophy that is emerging in the academic circles of the country.

——Liu Xiaofeng

A fundamental paradox of the era of globalization is that, on the one hand, globalization seems to have dissolved all special cultural identities, but on the other hand, this dissolution itself has led to a universal identity crisis and cultural anxiety, thus brewing the danger of a clash of civilizations. This book deeply analyzes the complexity of cultural politics in the era of globalization from both historical and theoretical perspectives. It is a must-read for anyone who cares about the fate of Chinese civilization in the era of globalization.

——Gan Yang

About the Author · · · · · ·

Table of contents · · · · · ·