Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)

This pivot offers an innovative approach to dance education, bringing a creative and inclusive dance education pedagogy into Chinese dance classrooms. Associate Professor Ralph Buck’s experiences of teaching dance at the Beijing Dance Academy and the possible implications for dance education in China lie at the heart of this text. Through a critical examination of personal teaching practice, pedagogical issues, trends and rationales for dance education in the curriculum are highlighted. Informed by constructivist ideals that recognise dialogue and interaction, this pivot suggests that dance can be re-positioned and valued within educational contexts when pedagogical strategies and objectives are framed in terms of teaching and learning in, about and through dance education.

This book is the first on the history of Chinese public relations, and has been selected as one of the “40 representative books for 40 years of public relations in China” by the Public Relations Society of China. In four chapters, it systematically reviews and analyzes the trajectory and evolution of public relations in China from the very start – when the “reform and opening” policy was adopted in 1978 – to the present.

The book will help both established and new scholars and practitioners in the field to understand the changing nature of public relations in China. It offers a unique perspective by placing the discussion of the development of public relations in the general context of the changes and development of China as a whole, and in relation to the changing status of public relations around the world. Accordingly, readers will not only gain a more in-depth understandingof the history of the field, but also of the political, economic, societal, cultural and scientific development of China in modern times.

Tracing the cultural interactions between South and Southeast Asia since prehistoric times, the book critically scrutinizes the current cultural diplomacy initiatives of India´s Look-Act East Policy. Reminding the need to look at culture as a two-way process and the need to re-define the understanding of culture in its Space Age setting, the author emphasizes on India realising its unique multicultural potentiality to broaden the outlook and parameters of cultural diplomacy to suit the unfolding World Order in the region. The nature and composition of the demography of Southeast Asia and its Indian diaspora calls for a balanced approach in covering the land and maritime sectors, the book further observes. Adopting a peoples-centric approach, the author argues for cultural interactions to go beyond the union government and its agencies and advocates for the role of state governments, non-governmental actors, and other community initiatives as well. 

Professor Drew’s latest work makes the case that even great public policy needs to be deliberately and strategically sold in order for it to ultimately be considered a success. However, it seems that most people charged with the task of selling public policy simply do not have the requisite skills to do so.

Selling public policy is an art that draws on disparate strands of scholarship spanning the political sciences, economics, sociology, ethics and the classics. To perform the art of selling public policy one must first master the lessons from the greats in the field. Following this, it is necessary to learn how to apply the knowledge to real-world complex scenarios in such a way that the policy is indeed sold and stays sold over the implied returns period.

This book is unique in the corpus of scholarly literature because it provides both the knowledge and real-world case studies required for students, scholars, and policy practitioners to master the art of selling public policy.

This book is a companion to Political Debasement: Incivility, Contempt, and Humiliation in Parliamentary and Public Discourse. It brings together interdisciplinary contributions to provide a comprehensive and detailed exploration of the nature, function, and effect of debasement language used by selected political leaders in Western and non-Western countries. Among them are Donald Trump (in the USA), Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (Turkey), Rodrigo Roa Duterte (Philippines), Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil), Abe Shinzô (Japan), Pauline Hanson (Australia), Kyriakos Mitsotakis (Greece), Geert Wilders (the Netherlands), Beppe Grillo (Italy), and Santiago Abascal (Spain). Chapters focus specifically on the language of these leaders while examining debasement discourse from narrow and broad perspectives. The former includes the use of crude or abusive language (e.g., curses, obscenity, and swearing) to demean, humiliate, mock, insult, or belittle, based on the actual or perceived object or entity (e.g., race, religion, national, gender identity, or sexual orientation); the latter includes the use of devious or indirect irony, sarcasm, cynicism, ridicule, subtlety, and understatement to degrade and discredit other individuals or groups. The book represents the collective wisdom of scholars and researchers, experts in fields such as communication, political science, international relations, and social and political psychology. Cumulatively, the authors develop a global analysis of debasement discourse in societies from West to East and offer a cutting-edge approach to expand a framework assessing the role and effect of such rhetoric in contemporary politics.

This book summarizes and classifies 100 wonderful Chinese industrial heritage cases, starting from the path of cultural tourism industry's involvement in the transformation and renewal of industrial heritage. With the development of industrialization for more than 100 years, China, which has been a major industrial heritage country, is often ignored in the field of industrial heritage research. This is the first book in the world to systematically explore the cultural and tourism industry's involvement in the transformation and renewal of Chinese industrial heritage. It fully contributed the wisdom and experience of the transformation of China's industrial heritage to the world, and provided important experience for the transformation of industrial heritage in other parts of the world. This book is not only a reference book for scholars, planners, and decision makers, but it will also inspire other readers who are concerned about China's urbanization and industrial heritage.

This collection of original chapters reflects the increasing interest over the past few decades in the relationship between political humor (as a distinct form of political discourse) and a country’s culture: Beliefs, values, norms, institutions, and processes that are affected, shaped by, and related to historical experiences, socialization processes, social structure, religion, the economic system, and majority/minority relations. Written by contributors from various fields of study – political science, communication, linguistics, sociology, culture studies, and political psychology – the book looks at the central role played by “culture” in shaping and affecting the sundry aspects of political humor, including satire and parody. The chapters, focusing on diverse countries such as the USA, UK, Greece, Philippines, Israel, Poland, Italy, and Spain, as well as ethnic groups, offer a comprehensive overview of political humor as used by public figures, including politicians, artists, performers, as well as comedians, talk shows hosts and the general public. By presenting fresh perspectives on the relationship between culture and political humor as employed during political debates in parliament, in media interviews and shows, on the internet and in art, the book opens up new avenues for discussion regarding the factors that shape political humor across the globe in a variety of political and media systems.

This book explores the dynamics of the Chinese regulation of internet firms. Sitting at the crossroad of regulation studies, communication studies, political economy, and the social movements, it conceptualises China as a “double-bind regulatory state”, defined as a two-step autonomy-enabling process. First, the party-state’s pursuit of competiting objectives creates a predicament for regulators. In the second step, private internet firms consciously exploit regulators’ predicament to enlarge their maneuvering room. The approach of “double-bind regulatory state” challenges some current academic accounts that exaggerate the capacity of the Chinese party-state to establish seamless control. This book is of interest to scholars of Chinese politics, digital law, political economy, and more.

This book serves as a critical examination of contemporary American literature by examining David Foster Wallace's incorporation of corporeal narrative techniques in his novels, with a particular focus on The Broom of the System, Infinite Jest, and The Pale King. By employing corporeal narratology as a conceptual framework, it sheds light on Wallace's profound exploration of the human body and its societal implications. Through detailed analysis, the book reveals how Wallace's narratives serve as a critique of contemporary issues such as self-alienation, consumerism, and the dehumanizing effects of modern society. Designed for scholars and students of literature, cultural studies, and narrative theory, this book provides a comprehensive understanding of Wallace's literary legacy and his keen observations on the complexities of human existence in the modern world.

Do Chinese and English speakers think differently? While the strong version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis — the idea that language determines thought — has long been discredited, this book offers a more nuanced perspective on whether linguistic differences between Chinese and English influence how native speakers perceive the world. Bringing together a multidisciplinary collection of papers from fields such as philosophy, translation studies, language acquisition, and psycholinguistics, this volume explores the complex interplay between language and thought in these two languages. It will serve as a valuable reference for sinologists, linguists, and scholars of Asian studies alike.