Facing the rise of China and Chinese in the global context, new perspectives on traditional sinologies and sinophone studies in Europe and the Americas are needed. Due to its special historical experience, Taiwan is well-situated to preserve Chinese Culture on the one hand, and to transform the impacts and influences of western cultures on Chinese culture on the other hand. With these considerations in mind, we are in charge of producing new insights in sinophone studies and establishing new paradigms in this field.
Chinese Culture Subjectivity Research Center (CCS) is funded by the Higher Education Sprout Project of the Ministry of Education in Taiwan. We apply the concept of “sinophone” in the sense of the “global East”, expecting to broaden the research dimensions of traditional sinologies and Chinese studies and open them to all the sinophone cultural communities in worldwide. Considering the performance of Chinese culture in this sense, we look forward to reviewing certain categories concerning subjectivity, such as Chinese thinking, Chinese aesthetics, the Chinese conceptions of historicity and transcending, and so forth, so as to explicate the question of “What is Chinese?” Furthermore, we expect to develop a conception of “Chinese” which will not be based on bloodlines or national identities. Apart from that, we will endeavor to elaborate a conception of “human being” which will not be based in Eurocentrism.
We are aware of the phenomena of Sinocentrism or Han chauvinism and therefore we are open to multi-dimensional Chinese culture performances and communities, including mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, North America, East Asia, South-East Asia, etc. We not only examine the development of Chinese culture in different regions but also focus on the their interactions with other cultures in the process of globalization so as to grasp the common core of Chinese culture. We hope thereby to make contributions to the exploration of the rich diversity of global civilization.