Eurosinica

ISSN: 2235-6258

"EUROSINICA is a book series for monographs of various thematic focuses, sharing the goal of studying culture and literature in contemporary or historical contexts. The series, under the imprint of Peter Lang, was founded in 1984 by the German sinologist Günther Debon (1921–2005) and the Canadian comparatist Adrian Hsia (1938–2010); so far, thirteen books have been published. While the founding editors placed the emphasis on the transfer processes of classical literary works and motifs between cultures, the continuation of their work requires new approaches. Rather than operate within the conceptual framework of “cultural dialogue” between an East and a West viewed as distinct entities, the series editors tend to a view of cultures in contact. EUROSINICA is accordingly open for studies and interpretation of authors, personalities, genres and individual works committed to an understanding of humanity as a common source of values which, rather than be impeded by cultural, linguistic or ethnic disparity, are being reshaped and reinvented in different settings. From the basic concept the series’ founders have contributed, we will carry on the approach to literature, the arts and history as transnational narratives emerging out of distinct contextualization and relying on as well as contributing to both the European and the Sinic cultural spheres. We explicitly welcome well-argued innovative interpretations of classical works, as we do historical and translation studies. At a time of ongoing global changes of aesthetic and critical paradigms, EUROSINICA does not intend to propose the East-West-paradigm as a last refuge for intellectual cultural conservatism, but rather envisages new critical approaches to the sporadic process of aesthetic and historical interactions (“contacts”) between formerly allegedly “separated” cultural spheres. For Authors EUROSINICA expects to publish between one and two volumes annually and aims for a balance between studies of contemporary or ancient focus. It thereby seeks to counter the trend of separating research on classical and modern issues. EUROSINICA will consider manuscripts in European languages. The series editors and board members are scholars at universities in the Baltic and Nordic countries of Europe, as well as in mainland China, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao. They represent the disciplines of comparative literature, cultural studies and history in European and East Asian languages. As a series, EUROSINICA is directed and managed by AsiaRes, the Baltic Research Center for East Asian studies at the University of Latvia in Riga and the Department of Asian, Middle Eastern and Turkish Studies at Stockholm University. For further information, please write to eurosinica@asiares.lv or irmy.schweiger@orient.su.se. Editors • Frank Kraushaar (Tallinn University/Tallinn/Estonia; AsiaRes University of Latvia/Riga/Latvia) • Irmy Schweiger (University of Stockholm/Sweden) Board Members • He Chengzhou (Nanjing) • Mark Gamsa (Tel Aviv / Riga) • Shu-ching Ho (Düsseldorf) • Lucie Berner (Macao) • Tatsuo Takahashi (Tokyo) • Rossella Ferrari (London) " "EUROSINICA is a book series for monographs of various thematic focuses, sharing the goal of studying culture and literature in contemporary or historical contexts. The series, under the imprint of Peter Lang, was founded in 1984 by the German sinologist Günther Debon (1921–2005) and the Canadian comparatist Adrian Hsia (1938–2010); so far, thirteen books have been published. While the founding editors placed the emphasis on the transfer processes of classical literary works and motifs between cultures, the continuation of their work requires new approaches. Rather than operate within the conceptual framework of “cultural dialogue” between an East and a West viewed as distinct entities, the series editors tend to a view of cultures in contact. EUROSINICA is accordingly open for studies and interpretation of authors, personalities, genres and individual works committed to an understanding of humanity as a common source of values which, rather than be impeded by cultural, linguistic or ethnic disparity, are being reshaped and reinvented in different settings. From the basic concept the series’ founders have contributed, we will carry on the approach to literature, the arts and history as transnational narratives emerging out of distinct contextualization and relying on as well as contributing to both the European and the Sinic cultural spheres. We explicitly welcome well-argued innovative interpretations of classical works, as we do historical and translation studies. At a time of ongoing global changes of aesthetic and critical paradigms, EUROSINICA does not intend to propose the East-West-paradigm as a last refuge for intellectual cultural conservatism, but rather envisages new critical approaches to the sporadic process of aesthetic and historical interactions (“contacts”) between formerly allegedly “separated” cultural spheres. Pour les auteurs EUROSINICA expects to publish between one and two volumes annually and aims for a balance between studies of contemporary or ancient focus. It thereby seeks to counter the trend of separating research on classical and modern issues. EUROSINICA will consider manuscripts in European languages. The series editors and board members are scholars at universities in the Baltic and Nordic countries of Europe, as well as in mainland China, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao. They represent the disciplines of comparative literature, cultural studies and history in European and East Asian languages. As a series, EUROSINICA is directed and managed by AsiaRes, the Baltic Research Center for East Asian studies at the University of Latvia in Riga and the Department of Asian, Middle Eastern and Turkish Studies at Stockholm University. For further information, please write to eurosinica@asiares.lv or irmy.schweiger@orient.su.se. Éditeurs • Frank Kraushaar (Tallinn University/Tallinn/Estonia; AsiaRes University of Latvia/Riga/Latvia) • Irmy Schweiger (University of Stockholm/Sweden) Les membres du conseil d'administration • He Chengzhou (Nanjing) • Mark Gamsa (Tel Aviv / Riga) • Shu-ching Ho (Düsseldorf) • Lucie Berner (Macao) • Tatsuo Takahashi (Tokyo) • Rossella Ferrari (London) " "EUROSINICA is a book series for monographs of various thematic focuses, sharing the goal of studying culture and literature in contemporary or historical contexts. The series, under the imprint of Peter Lang, was founded in 1984 by the German sinologist Günther Debon (1921–2005) and the Canadian comparatist Adrian Hsia (1938–2010); so far, thirteen books have been published. While the founding editors placed the emphasis on the transfer processes of classical literary works and motifs between cultures, the continuation of their work requires new approaches. Rather than operate within the conceptual framework of “cultural dialogue” between an East and a West viewed as distinct entities, the series editors tend to a view of cultures in contact. EUROSINICA is accordingly open for studies and interpretation of authors, personalities, genres and individual works committed to an understanding of humanity as a common source of values which, rather than be impeded by cultural, linguistic or ethnic disparity, are being reshaped and reinvented in different settings. From the basic concept the series’ founders have contributed, we will carry on the approach to literature, the arts and history as transnational narratives emerging out of distinct contextualization and relying on as well as contributing to both the European and the Sinic cultural spheres. We explicitly welcome well-argued innovative interpretations of classical works, as we do historical and translation studies. At a time of ongoing global changes of aesthetic and critical paradigms, EUROSINICA does not intend to propose the East-West-paradigm as a last refuge for intellectual cultural conservatism, but rather envisages new critical approaches to the sporadic process of aesthetic and historical interactions (“contacts”) between formerly allegedly “separated” cultural spheres. Für Autoren EUROSINICA expects to publish between one and two volumes annually and aims for a balance between studies of contemporary or ancient focus. It thereby seeks to counter the trend of separating research on classical and modern issues. EUROSINICA will consider manuscripts in European languages. The series editors and board members are scholars at universities in the Baltic and Nordic countries of Europe, as well as in mainland China, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao. They represent the disciplines of comparative literature, cultural studies and history in European and East Asian languages. As a series, EUROSINICA is directed and managed by AsiaRes, the Baltic Research Center for East Asian studies at the University of Latvia in Riga and the Department of Asian, Middle Eastern and Turkish Studies at Stockholm University. For further information, please write to eurosinica@asiares.lv or irmy.schweiger@orient.su.se. Herausgeber • Frank Kraushaar (Tallinn University/Tallinn/Estonia; AsiaRes University of Latvia/Riga/Latvia) • Irmy Schweiger (University of Stockholm/Sweden) Vorstandsmitglieder • He Chengzhou (Nanjing) • Mark Gamsa (Tel Aviv / Riga) • Shu-ching Ho (Düsseldorf) • Lucie Berner (Macao) • Tatsuo Takahashi (Tokyo) • Rossella Ferrari (London) "

12 publications

Hermeneutic Commentaries

ISSN: 1043-5735

"The question of “interpretation” of the text is at the center of this collection of monographs and commentaries on classical literatures. Interpretation starts with the realisation that at the outset, the sense of a text is an hypothesis to be gradually and constantly revised and ascertained. Grammar, syntax, and rhetoric are certainly the necessary part for this critical operation, but they fall short of giving full sense to the signification of the text. A philological commentary establishes the texts as close as possible to the author’s text, and provides the information necessary for modern readers to understand what the text meant to its contemporary users. But besides the impossibility of achieving this task fully, this sort of information does not provide the sense of the text as it opens itself to the questions of its individuality and universality, its historicity and its transhistorical iterability, as it hides the rules and game of its composition, its difference in order to show its identity. These opposite poles are constantly united and create a tension, a continuous oscillation that are the very domaine of the interpretative analysis, and the conditions of the text’s ever emerging sense . The hermeneutic circle, through which the critical hypothesis is constantly revised and made more precise, can be viewed also as a sort of deconstructive operation, a decomposing of the text in order to recompose it around its now discovered rules and games, of which the author is not necessarily always fully aware. Because of these conditions the sense of a text is more open to the critics than to its author; this point makes the critics conscious that as they are “reading”, they are in some way “writing” the text." "The question of “interpretation” of the text is at the center of this collection of monographs and commentaries on classical literatures. Interpretation starts with the realisation that at the outset, the sense of a text is an hypothesis to be gradually and constantly revised and ascertained. Grammar, syntax, and rhetoric are certainly the necessary part for this critical operation, but they fall short of giving full sense to the signification of the text. A philological commentary establishes the texts as close as possible to the author’s text, and provides the information necessary for modern readers to understand what the text meant to its contemporary users. But besides the impossibility of achieving this task fully, this sort of information does not provide the sense of the text as it opens itself to the questions of its individuality and universality, its historicity and its transhistorical iterability, as it hides the rules and game of its composition, its difference in order to show its identity. These opposite poles are constantly united and create a tension, a continuous oscillation that are the very domaine of the interpretative analysis, and the conditions of the text’s ever emerging sense . The hermeneutic circle, through which the critical hypothesis is constantly revised and made more precise, can be viewed also as a sort of deconstructive operation, a decomposing of the text in order to recompose it around its now discovered rules and games, of which the author is not necessarily always fully aware. Because of these conditions the sense of a text is more open to the critics than to its author; this point makes the critics conscious that as they are “reading”, they are in some way “writing” the text." "The question of “interpretation” of the text is at the center of this collection of monographs and commentaries on classical literatures. Interpretation starts with the realisation that at the outset, the sense of a text is an hypothesis to be gradually and constantly revised and ascertained. Grammar, syntax, and rhetoric are certainly the necessary part for this critical operation, but they fall short of giving full sense to the signification of the text. A philological commentary establishes the texts as close as possible to the author’s text, and provides the information necessary for modern readers to understand what the text meant to its contemporary users. But besides the impossibility of achieving this task fully, this sort of information does not provide the sense of the text as it opens itself to the questions of its individuality and universality, its historicity and its transhistorical iterability, as it hides the rules and game of its composition, its difference in order to show its identity. These opposite poles are constantly united and create a tension, a continuous oscillation that are the very domaine of the interpretative analysis, and the conditions of the text’s ever emerging sense . The hermeneutic circle, through which the critical hypothesis is constantly revised and made more precise, can be viewed also as a sort of deconstructive operation, a decomposing of the text in order to recompose it around its now discovered rules and games, of which the author is not necessarily always fully aware. Because of these conditions the sense of a text is more open to the critics than to its author; this point makes the critics conscious that as they are “reading”, they are in some way “writing” the text."

1 publications

[Re]thinking Environmental Education

"The [Re]thinking Environmental Education book series is a response to the international recognition that environmental issues have taken center stage in political and social discourse. Resolution and/or re-evaluation of the many contemporary environmental issues will require a thoughtful, informed, and well-educated citizenry. Quality environmental education does not come easily; it must be grounded in mindful practice and research excellence. This series reflects the highest quality of contemporary scholarship and, as such, is positioned at the leading edge not only of the field of environmental education, but of education generally. There are many approaches to environmental education research and delivery, each grounded in particular contexts and epistemological, ontological and axiological positions, and this series reflects that diversity."

23 publications

Critical Praxis and Curriculum Guides

The Critical Praxis and Curriculum Guides is a curriculum-based series reflective of theory creating praxis. The series targets not only undergraduate and graduate audiences, but also tenured and “experienced” teachers of all disciplines. Research suggests that teachers need to have well-designed, thematic-centered curricula and lessons at their disposal. This is accomplished when the school works as a community to meet their own needs. Community in this sense includes working collaboratively with students, parents, and local community organizations to help build the curriculum. Practically, this means that time is devoted to professional development workshops, not exam reviews or test preparation pointers, but real learning. Together with administrators, teachers form professional learning communities (PLCs) to discuss, analyze, and revise curricula and share pedagogical strategies that meet the needs of their particular school demographics. This communal approach was found to be more successful than requiring each individual teacher to create lessons on her/his own. Ideally, we would love it if each teacher could create their own authentic lessons because only s/he truly knows her/his students – and we encourage it, because it is possible! However, as educators ourselves, we understand the realities our colleagues in public schools face, especially when teaching in high needs areas. The Critical Praxis and Curriculum Guides provides relief for educators needing assistance in preparing their lessons. When possible, and in the spirit of communal practices, the series welcomes co-authored books by theorists and practitioners or solo-authored books by an expert deeply informed by the field. Because we strongly believe that theory guides our practice, each guide will blend theory and curriculum chapters creating a praxis. All, of course, in a critical pedagogical framework. Ultimately, the guides will serve as resources for teachers to use, expand upon, revise, and re-create.

13 publications