Abstract
The academic discourse of writing back to Western Centralism implicates a paradox. The paradox lies in the fact that the act of "writing back" actually constructs and reconstructs the discourse of Western Centralism it sets out to deconstruct. The paradox shows in two aspects of knowledge and value. When knowledge is concerned, the logic is that the more the West learns from and is influenced by the East the more advantaged the West is proved to be as the West is positioned and reinforced to be the master of the West. When value is concerned, the more the West acknowledges its cultural advantage of the East and practices self-criticism the more its consciousness of subjectivity is consolidated through its openness, modesty and tolerance. In such a Western-Centered reality, "writing back" to Western Centralism is actually a double-functioned cultural artifice, during which "writing back" turns into "writing for." By taking the example of Lach and Van Kley's Asia in the Making of Europe, the paper does not try to trace the motivation behind the cultural artifice of "writing back" but to investiage its function and results. The paper hopes to expose the dialectic structure and the extreme power of Western Centralism.
First Page
6
Last Page
15
Recommended Citation
Zhou, Ning. 2014. "To Write back is to Write for: The Intellectual Trap in the Critique of Western Centralism." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 34, (1): pp.6-15. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol34/iss1/20
