The volume deals with the relationship between language, dialogue, human nature and culture by focusing on an approach that considers culture to be a crucial component of dialogic interaction. Part I refers to the so-called ‘language instinct debate’ between nativists and empiricists and introduces a mediating position that regards language and dialogue as determined by both human nature and culture. This sets the framework for the contributions of Part II which propose varying theoretical positions on how to address the ways in which culture influences dialogue. Part III presents more empirically oriented studies which demonstrate the interaction of components in the ‘mixed game’ and focus, in particular, on specific action games, politeness and selected verbal means of communication.

In this book, Andrew J. Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart delineate the relationship between “language in particular” and “culture in general” by focusing on language as both social practice and a means of classifying and interpreting the world. A traditional linguistic approach to a focus on language is illuminated by their anthropological emphasis on the embodiment of relationships and experience. In the book, the body is placed in the foreground for understanding language in culture, which helps in turn to understand how it enables us to adapt to the world of lived material experience. Written in an accessible style and drawing on an extensive corpus of primary field research from Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Japan, Taiwan, Scotland, and Ireland, Strathern and Stewart present a world anthropology which links together European, North American, and Asia-Pacific approaches to the topic. Students and scholars alike of sociocultual anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and linguistics will benefit from this engaging work on how the various components of our culture are informed and shaped through language.

Divided into three sections, this book illustrates how Christ and Christian faith affect worship, evangelism, and social issues.

Intercultural Dialogue: In Search of Harmony in Diversity offers a philosophical analysis of the issues surrounding cultural diversity and dialogical relationships among cultures as an alternative to “culture wars” and hegemonic globalization. It examines the ideas of dialogue and harmony as expressed in Daoism, Confucianism, Indian, and Ancient Greek philosophical traditions, as well as in contemporary European and Latin-American philosophies. Drawing on the works of Laozi, Confucius, Plato, Kant, and Gandhi, the book shows the importance of intercultural dialogue and the globalization of philosophy. It asserts that intercultural dialogue should have inter-philosophical global dialogue as its epistemological and ontological foundation. Intercultural philosophy elaborates on the conceptualization of philosophy as culturally embedded. Attention is paid to Bakhtin’s dialogism and its contemporary elaboration in the phenomenology of indirect speech, synergic anthropology, and the theory of transculture. The book offers a critical analysis of world problems. Their possible solutions require a more dialogically-oriented and humane transformation of society, aiming for a cosmopolitan order of law and peace.

How can art act as an intercultural mediator for dialogue? In order to scrutinize this question, relevant theoretical ideas are discussed and artistic intervention projects examined so as to highlight its cultural, political, economic, social, and transformational impacts. This thought-provoking work reveals why art is needed to help multicultural neighbourhoods and societies be sustainable, as well as united by diversity. This edited collection underlines the significance of arts and media as a tool of understanding, mediation, and communication across and beyond cultures. The chapters with a variety of conceptual and methodological approaches from particular contexts demonstrate the complexity in the dynamics of (inter)cultural communication, culture, identity, arts, and media. Overall, the collection encourages readers to consider themselves as agents of the communication process promoting dialogue.

Women in Dialogue: (M)Uses of Culture results from an international symposium held at Ege University, Izmir, Turkey, in 2006, which brought together scholars from over ten countries, and from multiple academic backgrounds, who share professional interest in women’s studies, and, to no less degree, in current women’s realities. The book presents a collection of essays united by a common focus on the position of women as objects of cultural production in different geographic, national, and political contexts, as well as the character and typology of women’s contribution to cultural activity across the ethnic or religious divide marking the face of contemporary world. The volume comprises two sections: the first, titled “Women in Dialogue,” contains contributions which analyze literary representations of women from a variety of perspectives, and from diverse spatial and temporal locations. The second part, titled “(M)Uses of Culture,” includes personalized observations by several women writers, of both poetry and fiction, their commentaries on their own work as artists, and their deeply experienced “musings” on the position of women as artists in the world of today. The essays that this volume brings together are varied in subject matter; yet they are connected by the common theme, epitomized in the metaphor of dialogue, as a platform for active, productive communication, leading – on the pages of the book, if not elsewhere – to learning, and mutual understanding.