Home - Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Bridging the Sino-American Divide: American Studies with Chinese Characteristics
Editor: Priscilla Roberts
Date Of Publication: Oct 2007
Isbn13: 9781847183170
Isbn: 1-84718-317-4
Within China, the discipline of American Studies spans a wide variety of concerns and preoccupations, reflecting its practical diversity in a transnational setting. Essays in this volume by close to forty scholars, the majority most of them based in mainland China, reflect on the past history and current teaching of American Studies within China, placing these in comparative perspectives. The nature of globalization, the transmission of ideas and practices across cultural boundaries, the formulation and meaning of identity in cross-national communications, constitute major themes in contemporary American Studies in China. For officials and commentators alike, the past, present, and future state of Sino-American relations are also an overriding preoccupation of China’s America-watchers. Overall, this collection allows the reader to sample and appreciate the state of the field of American Studies in today’s China.

Priscilla Roberts is Associate Professor of History at the University of Hong Kong, where she has taught since 1984. She is also Honorary Director of the university’s Centre of American Studies, in which capacity she is involved in numerous efforts to encourage exchanges among Americanists in China, Hong Kong, the United States, and Europe. She has published extensively on twentieth-century diplomatic and international history.

"Bridging the Sino-American Divide is a welcome contribution to transnational American Studies. New scholarship in the book explores popular culture, feminism, literature, history, politics, diplomacy, foreign relations, trade, consumer culture, immigration, tourism, national values, globalization and other topics in comparative perspective. The rich smorgasbord of essays also surveys the development of American Studies in China, and provides institutional histories and pedagogical models, paying particular attention to cultural differences, and to the challenges facing Chinese Americanists in the 21st century. The result is a fascinating volume that will be of interest to scholars in a broad range of fields."

Shelley Fisher Fishkin, Stanford University, Past-President of the American Studies Association

"This essential and unique volume--by gathering a group of top scholars and leading practitioners from China and the United States--reviews critically the status of American Studies in China, highlights the political, social and cultural forces shaping Chinese perceptions of America, and examines the opportunities and challenges facing US-China relations. By putting together this important book, Priscilla Roberts has made a major contribution--one that is with no parallel in the existing scholarship--to the fields of American Studies and US-China relations. It is highly revealing, and highly recommended."

—Chen Jian, Michael J. Zak Professor of History for US-China Relations, Cornell University

Price Uk Gbp: 44.99
Price Us Usd: 67.99

Sample pdf (including Table of Contents)

We recommend

Language and Literature
Middle-earth and Beyond: Essays on the World of J. R. R. Tolkien

History
Arctic Discourses

Education
The Supportive School: Wellbeing and the Young Adolescent

Interesting reviews

From Navigating Music and Sound Education

“We rarely have the opportunity and time to engage with the practicalities of music teaching through the lens of evidence-based practice. This book provides us with a wonderful exception that is accessible to beginning and established teachers. It contains a wide range of stimulating and thought-provoking material that draws on real-world experiences and events, which are contextualised, informed and structured by theory. This is a powerful combination that we can visit again and again for insight and inspiration. Congratulations to all involved, particularly the editors for shaping such a valuable contribution!”
—Professor Graham F. Welch, University of London; President, International Society of Music Education

“Navigating music and sound education draws together a range of issues increasingly acknowledged to be at the basis of reflective and effective music learning and teaching: social settings, cultural dimensions, gender, indigeneity, varying cognitive approaches, inter-disciplinary connections, technology, types of learning, and creativity. It opens up areas of pedagogy that go beyond classroom methodology to acknowledge student individuality and encourage music learning and teaching grounded in the reality of students’ musical and social lives. It will be invaluable for those training to become educators and for teachers already in the field.”
—Associate Professor Peter Dunbar-Hall, University of Sydney

“This book brings an important contribution to music teacher education as it challenges the readers to rethink their paradigms of music education. It highlights the importance of preparing a reflective teacher, autonomous, creative and conscious of the multifaceted and multicultural locus in which they will work. The book also draws on the importance for music teachers to consider the context in which they work, and establish a dialog between local musical traditions, informal music practices and global trends of music teaching and learning. Most importantly, all chapters are in one way or another derived from research carried out on specific areas, thus stressing the importance of the research informed practice in music education.”
—Professor Liane Hentschke, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil; International Society of Music Education Immediate Past President

Many readers will appreciate Steve Dillon and Kathy Hirche’s description of the future of education in their work with dynamic technological contexts.

Navigating Music and Sound Education is a wonderful guide and resource for pre-service music teachers, for teachers in the field, and for teacher educators.

It offers a range of fresh perspectives on the state of music education as it is and as it might be. Kari K Veblen

Navigating Music and Sound Education is an ambitious project which features current research from 20 individuals whose professional identities run the gamut from musician to songwriter to student to educator to music therapist to ethnomusicologist. The book’s scope is perhaps the most exciting aspect of Navigating Music and Sound Education.
Kari K Veblen
University of Western Ontario
British Journal of Music Education
October 2011