Globalization with Chinese Characteristics: Conceptualizing a textbook adaptation that avoids turning China into a set of examples or exceptions

How can all the academic and public debates over globalization be best introduced to a Chinese audience? How can this be done in a way that avoids reducing the complexity of Chinese experiences into just a list of examples of processes and patterns that western scholars have already theorized based on western experiences? And how can it also be done in a way that avoids asserting Chinese exceptionalism and difference in ways that obscure the very real integrative ties and impacts of globalization in China. This seminar is an invitation to deliberate how to navigate this challenging pathway between the Scylla and Charybdis of examples and exceptionalism. It comes at a moment when Matt Sparke and Yanning Wei are collaborating on plans to develop a Chinese edition of “Introducing Globalization: Ties, Tensions and Uneven Development."

 

Matt Sparke is Professor of Geography, International Studies and Global Health at the University of Washington, where he also serves as the Director of Integrated Social Sciences (a new online BA). He is the author of “Introducing Globalization: Ties, Tensions and Uneven Integration” (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), “In the Space of Theory: Post-foundational Geographies of the Nation-State” (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005) and over 75 other publications.

 

Yanning Wei is Phd candidate, Geography Department, University of Washington. His research focuses on the rural-urban relations in contemporary China in the era of globalization. Currently, he is helping Dr. Sparke in writing “Introducing Globalization: Ties, Tensions and Uneven Integration,” the third edition (Chinese).