Research

Professor Xiaohai Wang is a Visiting Fellow in 2021-2022 and will be in residence at CRASSH in Lent and Easter terms 2022.

My research project is a follow-up research of my Jean Monnet Chair project “Culture and EU’s Sustainability”, which is aimed at developing a theoretical model of the interrelationship between economic, political, and cultural factors for the sustainability of the EU, drawing on data collected by the EVS and in light of the ecological point of view.

Being a multidimensional process, European integration should be driven forward by economic, political, social and cultural forces simultaneously. However, the main phases of European integration reveal a somewhat different story, where more economic and political rather than cultural factor is emphasized. It is evident that culture did not come into the sight of the founding fathers of the EEC during the phase of 1950s. Culture and identity began to appear as key dimensions of European integration in the EU documents in 1980s. The early 1990s turned a new page of the European integration, expanding from the spheres of economic and political into social integration. Meanwhile, since 1980s the EU has made its efforts to promote the construction of European Identity by formulating policies in language, education, and cultural policies. Since 2000, the overall progress of integration slowed down. An array of crises popped up and hit Europe, making the future of European integration at stake. In a word, the economic and political impetuses for integration were relatively reduced. A new source of impetus should be found to keep the European integration sustainable. After an analysis of the old driving forces, particularly the declining of economic and political ones, this project examines the issue of sustainability of European integration from the perspective of culture, focusing on the reasons why and how culture can become the new driving force for European integration.

About

Xiaohai Wang is Erasmus+ Jean Monnet Chair Professor (2017-) of EU culture. He is also the Jean Monnet Teaching Module holder (2011-2014) and MA supervisor for graduates majoring in Linguistics, Intercultural Communication, and European Studies at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, China. He was a visiting scholar at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University for the academic year 2012-2013. His research focuses on Cultural Anthropology, Ecology and Culture, Intercultural (Business) Communication, Cultural Dimension of European Integration, Cultural Dimension of Belt and Road Initiative, Culture and Foreign Language Teaching, and Discourse Analysis. For his current teaching and research, please visit https://ceus.gdufs.edu.cn/

At CRASSH he will be working on his book Cultural conflicts and coordination in the process of European Integration, one of the new outcomes of his JM Chair project. In addition, he will also be working on his books Intercultural (Business) Communication: A Linguistic Approach and EU-China Intercultural Communication in the Context of Belt and Road Initiative.

CENTRE FOR RESEARCH IN THE ARTS, SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

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