part-1 the development of area studies part-2 the critiques of area studies part-3 the future of...

Development of Area Studies:Origin, Lineages and Postwar Period as an Academic Discipline

Prof. Lee Kyuyoung

Lee JaewonLi ZiquanLiu Xuelian

07/10/13

Part-1The Development of Area Studies

Part-2The Critiques of Area studies

Part-3The future of Area studies – Our opinions and In-class Discussion

Lee JaewonI34006

Development of Area Studies

Development of Area StudiesAs committee is fine its cultural forms and

information move more quickly around the globe the characteristic way of organizing expert knowledge about the rest of the world in us universities appears to be in trouble

What kind of place can we find for the local and how might we know we now imagine the relationship between the local and Loeb and the globe

Area studies as this form of intellectual organizing is

known are set to have been created in response to World War 2 and the Cold War

World War 2 and the in shooting classes of the Cold War did not give birth to area studies one can argue on the contrary that they may have to post on the development of area studies

In the second place the concerns of area studies first emerged in the interwar period and we're related to developments that were simultaneously political and intellectual

The other major US university that developed a new approach to

the study of Oriental civilization was Princeton where there was a history of connections with the Arab world through protestent missions in particular with the American University of Beirut

These three words of elements in the United States should not be separated from the more influential changes taking place in the regions whose history and culture were being studied


When World War 2 shifted the center of gravity of academic research to the United States to two factors sent back the development of Middle Eastern area studies

Second unlike the situation in pre were you rub never sit is in the United States already were divided in two separate social science departments the division of labor could trace its origins back as far as the turn of the century but in the ears either side of World War 2 it had taken on a new significance

As professional political and economic knowledge she came to see the world as a series of Nations stars it also came to imagine it to consist of us series of discrete national economies societies cultures and his stories


After World War 2 when the temp was made to develop the study of non-western areas in the United States the division of the economy into territorial DesPlaines of social science presented both of problem an opportunity

Another potential contribution of area studies to this project of university universalization was the increased recognition of cultural relativity relativity or the acknowledgement of cultural differences in the social sciences

Area studies would serve as a testing ground for the universalization of the social sciences in the postwar. The practical relevance of every studies it was sad would be for international cooperation among people of diverse values I'd all ideologies and objectivity


What I am proposing then is that the new structure of expert eyes in the US university invited and represented a particular relationship between versal and particular or as we would say today between the global and local

On the other hand and more significant what today we call the global

was invoked presented in a more general way in the most characteristic feature of the new us social science their claim to the universalism

The crisis of area studies today is usually understood as the problem of how every other fields are related to the academic disciplines

Typically however only one partner to this relationship is considered the source of the trouble area studies colors are told that their problems will be solved by getting back together with their displinary partners and accepting their authority


DNF validity of culture the state of the economy or society to survive as distinct territories of social scientific investigation what one mic all the details to realization of the DesPlaines reflects and interact with another detour realization that of contemporary global history the confidence of the postwar. That each culture and economy in social and political system could be the object of a separate social science represented on examined confidence in the total self enclosed geographically sixth form of the nation-state ass to assume space of all social scientific inquiry

The current problems of area studies for rims arrives to a

significant extent from this crisis in the social sciences they arise particularly from the problems faced by political science although the course of ever displaying can affect what happens to area studies anthropology and economy picks present fewer problems because in anthropology as in history and literature everyone is on area expert and in economics no one is


Two kinds of language are common for established the particularity of 14 regions in relation to the general at: of political science the new language of institutional outcomes and the older one of culture

The consequence of this relationship between this plane

and world region then is that the object of study remains defined and grasped only in terms of its relationship to the west and only in terms of its place in a narrative defined according to the global history of the West

The standard criticisms of this kind of modernization approach from the perspective of capitalism as a global structure of accumulation has been made often enough and do not need repeating


THE CRITIQUES OF AREA STUDIES

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Rational Choice Theory

Rational Choice Theory is the academic analogue of the "free market" principles that Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan represented in the 1980s, and that are now offered to the "world without boundaries" as the only possible paradigm of economic development. Like the putative free market, "rational choice" collapses the diversity of the human experience into one category, the self-interested individualist prototype that has animated and totalized the economics profession in the United States.

Bruce Cumings criticized that the rise of the rational choice and formal theory paradigms of social science inquiry has put at risk the subfields of economic history, historical sociology, and comparative politics, and the entire area studies project.

E.g.Why do you need to know Japanese or anything about Japan's history and culture if the methods of rational choice will explain why Japanese politicians and bureaucrats do the things they do?

"Boundary Displacement: Area Studies and International Studies during and after the Cold War" by Bruce Cumings


Political Movement

For a generation after World War II the bipolar conflict between Moscow and Washington and the hegemonic position of the United States in the world economy drew academic boundaries that had the virtue of clarity: "area studies" and "international studies," backed with enormous public and private resources, had clear reference to places or to issues and processes that became important to study.

"Boundary Displacement: Area Studies and International Studies during and after the Cold War" by Bruce Cumings

Various scholars have charged that Area Studies was simply a political movement, essentially an effort to “know the enemy,” and a function of United States’ effort to win the Cold War.This critique is most frequently heard from with political science, the discipline most excited by rational choice theories and most directly engaged with political trivializes of the cold war,its termination, and the transitions that have followed.David l. Stanton suggested that such narrow political views and representations are grossly inaccurate.In fact,the fields of area studies were already highly diversified during the Cold war.

David l. Stanton "The origin nature and challenges of area studies in the United States"


Ideographic VS Nomothetic

If the prmary purpose of area studieswas to demonstrates new model of university research and teaching, we may be more skeptical its effectiveness.

There is a quarrel could be put down to one over resources, or a rehash of the Methodenstreit between nomothetic and ideographic epistemologies.In fact is that area studies had no clear epistemological position,but not intentionally, in an uncertain middle ground in the methodensterit.

Immanuel Wallerstein. "The unintended consequences of cold war area studies"

Some scholars have charged that area studies with being merely "ideographic," primarily concerned with description,as opposed to the "nomothetic"or the theory building and generalizing character of the core social science discipline.However, David l. Stanton hold the ideas that it is not the presence of theory, but what kinds of theory are being used,and how explicit or implicit,and absorbed area studies into disciplinary.



Globalization

There are still dramatic changes in the conceptualization, procedures,and to some extent, the programmatic organization, of are studies are now resulting from increased recognition of important of processes of transnationalism,as an element of globalization.

E.g. Why should be study of Africa be divided between Sub Saharan countries and those of North Africa?



LOOK FORWARD TO THE FUTURE

New Development Environment

--The era of knowledge-driven economy

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Knowledge economy is a kind of economy which based on the production, distribution and use of knowledge.

Knowledge economy embodies the knowledge of human capital and technology is the core of economic development.


Industrial Economy - Multidisciplinary

Knowledge Economy - Interdisciplinary


First effect

Under the background of industrial economy

Previous area studies basically is a mixture from multidisciplinary studies with descriptive, rather than integration or interdisciplinary which combining quantitative and qualitative.

The reasons to cause this phenomenon: One is the lack of talents whose knowledge is deep and wide range ; The second is the discipline division is too detailed so that made it too hard to complete the areal integrated research.



Under the background of knowledge economy

In the era of knowledge economy, knowledge will become the important factor of economic development, it also will become a major area of market competition.

Due to the impact of these factors, knowledge restructuring and updating speed will be faster, the interdisciplinary penetration, crossover and interdependent degree will increase. It provides the foundation and condition to absorb the new thought method and the model from various disciplines for area studies. (e.g. Geography, Planning, Economics, Biology, Management, Mathematics etc.) It also enables area study researchers to have the ability to know the laws and complexity of areal development. Thereby, it provides favorable conditions for area studies to adapt to the multiple changes under the era of knowledge economy.


Knowledge economy informatization promotes the areal research method from traditional to modern. With computer application and the promotion of multimedia technology as the main content, especially the computer network development, as well as the geographic information system (GIS) is widely used. It provides technical assurance to realize the modernization of the area research methods.

Second effect


The rise of knowledge economy will necessarily construct the new pattern of land relationship and areal system and it will also bring new opportunities for area studies.

Conclusion

DISCUSSION

In Review Essay: Rethinking Area Studies , Once More, the author mentioned a kind of Area Studies Students that can be the fortune minority who grow up in multilingual environments that precisely match the person’s later intellectual interests to acquire both language ability and theoretical acuity.

Q: What kind of students are the most suitable and capable for studying Area Studies?

DISCUSSION

1.Area studies were connected to the Cold War agendas of the CIA, the FBI, and other intelligence and military agencies, so participating in such programs was tantamount to serving as an agent of the state. Do you think so?

2.The new geo-politics and the softening of national and area boundaries are already being reflected in the new attention population dispersion. In the context, what is your perspective on Area studies?

part-1 the development of area studies part-2 the critiques of area studies part-3 the future of...

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