September 3, 2018 / Siyu Chen

ERC Summer School, September 7–8, 2018

“Does cultural analysis need area studies? And does area studies need cultural analysis?”

In this seminar, co-organised with Dr. Vanessa Frangville from Université libre de Bruxelles
(ULB), Faculty of Letters, Translation and Communication, PhD students from the ULB and
from ASCA working on issues related to “China” will engage with the convergences and
tensions that arise when combining cultural analysis with approaches from area studies.
Whereas cultural analysis continues to be haunted by different modes of eurocentrism, area
studies on the other hand often remains entrenched in models of cultural exceptionalism and
essentialism. While our answer to the question posed in the title is a univocal “yes,” we also
want to probe into the difficulties, tensions and conflicts that arise from such a combination
of disciplinary approaches, both theoretically and methodologically.

Check out the program of our summer school at ERC Summer School Booklet