This volume addresses the issue of the human encounter with the Mystery of God and the purpose of human life. It explores major themes from diverse cultural and philosophical traditions, starting with questions about the possibility of belief in God, His transcendence as seen in both East and West, and ending with questions about ethics and about personhood, human dignity and human rights. Taking an eclectic approach, the chapters in this book each uniquely address aspects of the human encounter with the Mystery of God, drawing from specific cultures and traditions, and using a particular philosophical and theological style. Together, the chapters provide a fresh approach and a synergy that ensures that each topic contributes something new to the dialogue between religion and culture.

François Jullien, the leading philosopher and specialist in Chinese thought, has always aimed at building on inter-cultural relations between China and the West. In this new book he focuses on the following questions: Do universal values exist? Is dialogue between cultures possible? To answer these questions, he retraces the history of the concept of the universal from its invention as an aspect of Roman citizenship, through its neutralization in the Christian idea of salvation, to its present day manifestations. This raises the question of whether the search for the universal is a uniquely Western preoccupation: do other cultures, like China, even have a notion of the universal, and if so, how does it differ from ours? Having considered the meaning of the concept in the East and West, Jullien argues that, if communication between cultures is to be meaningful, facile assumptions of universal values and complacent relativism need to be examined. It follows, therefore, that dialogue between cultures should not begin with issues of identity and difference, but rather by considering divergence and profusion. By no longer simply assuming universality, we allow for greater self-reflection. This wide-ranging and engaging study will be of particular interest to students and scholars of philosophy and of Chinese culture and society. It will also appeal to a wider readership interested in contemporary thought and the challenges of communication between East and West.

This book presents new studies on intellectual and cultural interactions in the context of Buddhist heritage and Indo-Japanese dialogue in the late 19th and early 20th centuries on art, religion, and cultural politics. By revisiting Buddhist connections between India and Japan, it examines the pathways of communication on common aesthetic and religious heritage that emerged in the backdrop of colonial experiences and the rise of Asian nationalisms. The volume discusses themes such as Asian arts and crafts under colonialism, formation of East Asian art collections, development of Buddhist art history in Japan, Japanese encounters with Ajanta, India in the history of the Shinto tradition, Japan in India’s xenology, and Buddhism and world peace, and suggests paradigms of reconnecting cultural heritage within a global platform. With essays from experts across the world, this book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of history, art history, ancient Indian history, colonial history, heritage and cultural studies, South Asian and East Asian history, visual and media studies, Asian studies, international relations and foreign policy, and the history of globalization.

In this book, Andrew J. Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart delineate the relationship between “language in particular” and “culture in general” by focusing on language as both social practice and a means of classifying and interpreting the world. A traditional linguistic approach to a focus on language is illuminated by their anthropological emphasis on the embodiment of relationships and experience. In the book, the body is placed in the foreground for understanding language in culture, which helps in turn to understand how it enables us to adapt to the world of lived material experience. Written in an accessible style and drawing on an extensive corpus of primary field research from Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Japan, Taiwan, Scotland, and Ireland, Strathern and Stewart present a world anthropology which links together European, North American, and Asia-Pacific approaches to the topic. Students and scholars alike of sociocultual anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and linguistics will benefit from this engaging work on how the various components of our culture are informed and shaped through language.

European Heritage, Dialogue and Digital Practices focuses on the intersection of heritage, dialogue and digital culture in the context of Europe. Responding to the increased emphasis on the potential for heritage and digital technologies to foster dialogue and engender communitarian identities in Europe, the book explores what kind of role digital tools, platforms and practices play in supporting and challenging dialogue about heritage in the region. Drawing on fieldwork involving several European museums and heritage organisations, the chapters in this volume critically engage with the role of digital technology in heritage work and its association with ideas of democratisation, multivocality and possibilities for feedback and dialogic engagement in the emerging digital public sphere. The book also provides a framework for understanding dialogue in relation to other commonly used approaches in heritage institutions, such as participation, engagement and intercultural exchange. The authors map out the complex landscape of digitally mediated heritage practices in Europe, both official and unofficial, by capturing three distinct areas of practice: perceptions and applications of digitally mediated dialogues around heritage within European museums and cultural policy, facilitation of dialogue between European museums and communities through participatory design approaches and non-official mobilisation of heritage on social media. European Heritage, Dialogue and Digital Practices will be of interest to both scholars and students in the fields of heritage and museum studies, digital heritage, media studies and communication, the digital humanities, sociology and memory studies. The book will also appeal to policy makers and professionals working in a variety of different fields.

Chiefly a collection of papers from the symposium "Music in the dialogue of cultures: traditional music and cultural policy", held in Berlin, November 8-12, 1988 and organized by the International Institute for Comparative Music Studies and Documentation.

Intercultural Dialogue: In Search of Harmony in Diversity offers a philosophical analysis of the issues surrounding cultural diversity and dialogical relationships among cultures as an alternative to “culture wars” and hegemonic globalization. It examines the ideas of dialogue and harmony as expressed in Daoism, Confucianism, Indian, and Ancient Greek philosophical traditions, as well as in contemporary European and Latin-American philosophies. Drawing on the works of Laozi, Confucius, Plato, Kant, and Gandhi, the book shows the importance of intercultural dialogue and the globalization of philosophy. It asserts that intercultural dialogue should have inter-philosophical global dialogue as its epistemological and ontological foundation. Intercultural philosophy elaborates on the conceptualization of philosophy as culturally embedded. Attention is paid to Bakhtin’s dialogism and its contemporary elaboration in the phenomenology of indirect speech, synergic anthropology, and the theory of transculture. The book offers a critical analysis of world problems. Their possible solutions require a more dialogically-oriented and humane transformation of society, aiming for a cosmopolitan order of law and peace.

Dialogue has suffered a long eclipse in the history of philosophy and the history of rhetoric but has enjoyed a rebirth in the work of Hans-Georg Gadamer, Martin Buber, and Mikhail Bakhtin. Among twentieth-century figures, Bakhtin took a special interest in the history of the dialogue form. This book explores Bakhtin's understanding of Socratic dialogue and the notion that dialogue is not simply a way of persuading others to accept our ideas, but a way of holding ourselves, and others, accountable for all of our thoughts, words, and actions. In supporting this premise, Bakhtin challenges the traditions of argument and persuasion handed down from Plato and Aristotle, and he offers, as an alternative, a dialogical rhetoric that restructures the traditional relationship between speakers and listeners, writers and readers, as a mutual testing, contesting, and creating of ideas. The author suggests that Bakhtin's dialogical rhetoric is not restricted to oral discourse, but is possible in any medium, including written, graphic, and digital.