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嗯 这 这一次呢
很荣幸幸运的邀请到了马丁
普科纳
普科纳教授是哈佛大英英语文比较文学戏剧系的教授
欧洲科学院院士
他主编的诺顿世界文学选长达六千页
页英语世界众多大学采用的经典教科书
也是自大学以来来在我文学上上最后的两本书
此外呢
他在戏剧哲学领域的代表作
故此我反在剧场思想与戏剧革命之师等
在世文文领领域的代表作有啊
文字力力量
以及近近在中翻译译版版文化的故事
那在传统学术之外呢
普科纳也是一位不文分的探索者
他在世迹遍布全球
这种将文本阅读与实地探访结相结合的方式
使他的著作既有思想的深度
又有历历史的现场感
我正是在今年的国际文学认识识普科科教授授
当时请教了他文学和现实生活之间的关系
有一个关于文学的经典比喻是
尽早子文学就像是一面镜子啊
照映出了现实百态
那在我们当下的生活中呢
很多人又常常会觉得文学是关乎且紧紧关乎心灵的
是一个独立于世的领域啊
尤其是独立于历史
政治和经济生活
那无论是作为一面镜子还是作为一个世外桃源
文学都似乎是相对被动的
避世的
那普科纳教授呢
则提供了一个新的比喻
他说啊
文学是licky bunch
也就是一块渗水的海绵啊
他也很严谨的告诉我说
这个比喻呢
是来自他的一位朋友
不是他本人原创的啊
这个比喻意味着什么呢
啊
就是说文学
文学是流动性的
跟现实生活有着比我们想象更多的交互啊
文学既吸收着社会
政治
经济等外部养分
又在创作工作过程当中呢
啊
影响着外部
那这呼呼应普普科教授的书文字字力量量副副标题
文学如何塑造人类文明和世界历史
那带着对这个关于文学的比喻的思考
我们开始今天跟普科纳教授的对话啊
然后本场对话呢
主要将用英语进行
Hello
Professor pokner
Hello
I'm dala um so from the written world to the story of us
You seem to enlarge the scope of your writing
Uh
What is the story behind your writing
Can you share with us
Yeah
You know
Once upon a time
I wrote much more focused
Narrowly focused books on the nineteen than twenty centuries uh
But then about twenty years ago
I became the editor of a worldliteratanthology
And that forced me in some sense
Who gave me the opportunity to read much more widely and work with a large team of specialists to put together the larger
A larger picture
A larger story of literature or now of art
And that really kind of blew my mind
Because i realized that in the art ts humanity ties tend to to be so focused on very small slices of history
Which can be great for many purposes
But that very few people zoom out and look at the bigger picture
And there are good reasons not to do that it's difficult
You need many experts
But i realized in the process
That theare some things that you only see
When you zoom out and look at the broader picture
Just as they are only certain things
You see when you really zoom in and focus on something
So in any case i basase on that experience
I realized that there's a lot to be seen and learn from the big picture
So i started to write books
That half
That larger uh scope and the written world was the first
And the story of us is the most squezent
嗯
What kind of narrative about human civilization
Would you like to break in writing this new book
Like what is the biggest to away away
You hope ah the readers can get from your book
So from the most recent book
The story of us
I think the store
The story about culture i wanted
I think it's a great question
The story uh i wanted to question is it's basically a national story and meet of in a very nationalist moment in different parts of the world um and um both there re's so at least in america
Where you know i live in work
Even though i grew up in europe
There is a kind of right wing version or a republican version
And then there's a democrat version
The one
The the the right wing version is about patriotism and nationalalm m left wwvination is more about identity
Politics and different ethnic groups and different distinctive histors
And so from both sides
I realize that there was kind of you can describe it as a backlash against globalization uh um
And so a story of culture that really emphasized either specific ntions or specific ethnic groups
And i felt that uh what was forgotten about that is the cross fertilization of different groups of
Of individuals and of nations and of regions of the world
And so i think that was the you know what goes in the united states by identity
Politics uh and kind
Kind ethnal nationalism those two stories
Which i think even though they are politically think of themselves as on very opposite sides of the spectrum are actually
When you look at it from that cultural perspective quite similar
You know some people talk about a kind of shoe horse theory
Where sometimes the two extremes almost meet
And i think that's true
When it comes to the cultural stories
That i found worse dominating uh uh
And
And that continues to be the case
嗯嗯
So you have chosen fifteen stories altogether about culture to uh connect the whole global history um rather than the traditional pronological approach
Why these fifteen stories what's your a standard of choosing them for exexple like ninenineteen century is uh golden uh age of novel uh in chapter thirteen in talking about the new attitudes towards the past um
Why do you pick george elite among all the prominent female uh writers at the time
The geantegestcouah ah it is a brlue ascle
Yeah
The last question is in some sense the easiest to answer ai think pheritalieis h the greatest nineteen century writer um
But also because she is not only uh noveous
But
But also intellectual to she was phphosopopher
She translated philosopophy
What was one of the conrades of german philosophy to engalso was she really centrious
This what i think of the age of his historical thinking
That's the the focus of that chapter
How we came to think in terms of history in a particular way
And that has a kind of philosophical ah h version uh georgealiis sort ort the forfront of that
And it has a novelistic version of it so really to think deeply in that kind of certain type of history
But over all i would say that um your absodite
It's very hard to choose the fifteen stories are roughly chronological
But i think
But i don't do
I don't try to cover everything
I try to have the book as the written world also is episode
That is i have this overarching story
But then i to try storounit very sort ort dedeely narrated almost noliistic case studies
And how to choose them
It's
It's very hard
You have
You can only choose fifty or sixteen um
And so i think the way i proceded is that i asked an overall question
Which is in this case
How does culture work
How does it progress
What's the mechanism
What's the engine of cultural development
And then i came up with this thesis about cultural borrowing is the most important engine of cultural development
And then i had
Once i had
That i had a kind of criteron or selection mechanism
Because then i wanted to basically show the largest possible variety of cultural borrowing across history
So in some cases
It's a borrowing centered on an individual such as john shhung or you know an individual translator
Sometimes it's a single object like the indian statue that was found in pompee i the roman city that was covered by a volcano
Sometimes it's an entire culture borrowing a whole cultural package from another culture as japan with chchina
Roroed it with greece
So sometimes it was part of uh a conquest as the spanish congress of the new world that was covered of borrowing
I think that became the um the the selection criteria
And that i mean they could there would have still been many other options
But that i think that help me
Me focusing on
And i wanted of course to also tell a global history so represent different parts of the world
And then selecting good examples from around the world
Uh that explains like it feels like it's fifteen stortaining
But
But actually so in your book challenge
You
You faced 啊
During the research and writing process
Now that you have this faces there um
But i imagine you might have some um challenge in finding the evidence
Yeah
Well you know it's interesting
Once you start looking
You find examples
Everywhere it's
It was actually not that hard
Now i should say that from that continuing world on the work on the north nythology of worldliterature in that work i discovered for myself a whole number of texts and areas of knowledge
That i didn't know before
And that most people don't know that usually only a very small number of experts
Snow for example
The ethopian classical text
Religious text
The caba on augoas to which i devote one chapter
So from that work
I have sort of a treasure trove of sort of forgot master pieces or just tex and objects
That i think more people should know about
And so i always look for uh um occasions to to them them so the writitten for
For exple uh uh one one example of this was the pople woothe myan epich
Uh uh that you know very few people know about
But that i discovered in the work on the world literature and thlology
The only sort of great treature tradition in the americas before the arrival of the europeans
And so i use that that example and here in the in in culture
The the um the cable on augoss was one such such text
And so so i have that treasure trove
And i always uh think
Oh
Maybe there's an occasion to use them so ii have that base
But many other episodes for example the indian statue in pompey
I didn't know about before i started writing this spoook
But it's really one of these things
I find that uh in i've come across this general principle before in my work is that the main impediment to finding evidence it's actually that you don't look
Or you don't see it
When you find it or you don't look in the right placwhere
So it's really sort of the false concepmptions in our minds
That get in the way for example
You know subsiharin africa had no literatory tration
That before the nineteen century that you know you read that everywhere
Or there was no literature in the america
That before the uh arrival of the spanish
Once you get rid of these ideas
And you just start looking it's actually
It's everywhere
So so it's uh
And then sometimes they are sort of smaller scale problems that in certain areas they are very few specialists to write about it
And so sometimes you know
Sometimes there re's some question of accessibility
The the last thing ii say about accessibility is that you know i always also try to travel to the places
I travel a lot as you know so somemost surpripart
So you know there is there when i was writing the spoook
There was a civil war
But ethopopa
So that's one of the few places
That i couldn't travel to in my previous book
So um that's a portaama plaay an important role
But you know there was the war
There i've since been able to go to bucda a and most will um um a few years ago
But that was after writing the book unfortunately not before so you know i so they are sometimes impediments to that
But the main the most surprising thing
It's that once you start looking without prejudtiice so to speak um
It's actually very easy to find stuff uh surprisingly so next time
When we are having really having difficficulty
Fighghuh h vidence
May we may need to think back about the idea
Itself is it aa true idea
Yeah
Um in the book
You also mentioned stories related to china um such as shangzunang and donhuang in euroiniwhat is the like most most distinctive contribution of chinese civilization to the entire cultural network
It
It's very hard to single out just one i mean for me
嗯哼
Um he know in the book
The written world
I thought a lot about writing technologies
And there i would say from that perspective china contributed two of the most fundamental ones namely paper and print
And of the two paper is one that to me
I realized only in the course of writing the book just how important
It is in the written ten world
I acace the story of paper
You know from china and the sinnosphere then to the arabic
Where where badda becomes a center of paper making
So um that it was really the importance of paper
That that surprise me
And that really struck me
And so i ended up telling the story of paper from china to the arabic world
Where back da becomes a center of paper making
And where paper this technology really fuels if you will the golden age of arabic letters uh and then be ar the arabic world
It arrives in europe of the middle ages just so yeah
So that so those two those are technological inventions um
But then um
Of course
There there there many other inventions that are not just technological and h focus more more in in midpoke so so the since the the center of the book is cultural contact uh in mediation and just just asamazzto me
Me to write about figures like joansong who is such a crucial translator
And as i keep saying to people
Uh
Translators are usually not reveared very much um they often neglect that they often don't appear on the cos of box uh
And their work is often so of forgotten or
Or dismissed or downplay
They are also paid very badly uh
Uh you know there they are not
That are not often recognized a hero
So i think it's
It's amazing that china reveals a translator figuure such as john chunk to the extent
That it does
And so you know that that that something that i was really um um struck by the fact
They recognizing the importance of cultural contact and and and mediation um so before before reading your books shws up in my mind is more like uh a famous month
And um
And then uh also uh a important character in the book journeal to the west right um
But then i realize all he could be a hero in a like in your heart
And who's uh like a very how is an important cultural mediator
And you spad a lot of them like uh travelers and translators
I totally like sympathzed
When uh you said like translators are overlooked
And are also underpaid
And and but they were overlooked
Yes by mastrestream history
How do view their rose in the development of hilture
Well as as i just mentioned as really central because without them culture doesn't move around
It stays in place um and so that's just a very crucial
Especially since i'm so interested in in in the movement of culture um
And
And this process of cross flod fertilization
It's impossible without mediators
Especially when it comes to riding
But also other you know we can think of mediators also also as as trade networks by which let's say this indian statue arrives in the role man empire
Or by which um montisusumas the the astech emperors treasure and gift that he gave to quartis the spanish conquer um
That then moved to uh eeurowhere eeuropearartiencountered them
And i have a story about that so no
These are abtually the crucial uh
But they are as i said often not always it's interesting to to find some of these translators that have important figures and different cultures
I have another monk k in who is a japanese monk le comes to china and translates and brings back chinese texts and
And objects and practices um
But there are few and far between
And so i wanted to you know to
To amplify their role
And
And in highlight their role
Um Um
But you also mentioned like uh all mediators are ambiguous figures and especially translators tend to be seen with uh misgivings
Would you like to maybe uh talk a bit about why traditional historical operatives narrative
Systematically
Marginalized their roles
Yeah
Because you know they are seen as shifting figures between cultures
You know in the case of xunchhang g
He was not allowed to leave china
Because it's this was sort of a war zone in the west
Um and um
And then he was worried that when he return
When he would return
Um
He would be arrested fortunate by the time
There's a new emperor
And he was in fact weird um
But it was not an unfounded worry um
There's uh you know ii lived and study in italy for a while
And in italian and is a puum um thatdtodded traddy tota um that translators thrati tota are traders foranstora
So the two words are fortthe same um
And it's true that translators are often seen us um
And it double allegices ces allike the sport of war atator know know the they sort of shift they can um hh pretend to be part of both cultures
You don't know where they belong um they are sometimes arrested
And you know some often they be speak very conpletely for example
During the both the iraq and the afghanistan war
The american roops s lied on local translators
And then there was a big debate
Where fortununtely tely many of these translators um then taken back or offered to go to america
Because people knew that they would be punished perhaps uh
But you know after the withdwal of the american troops
This is not i and by the way i'm not uh supporting these invasions
Uh the role of these translators uh um um it's just highlights that uh
Uh now that's an extreme case in a war
You know one an occupy and foreign occupying force uh
But it just even if you don't have these war like conditions
They are often seeen with suspicion
Um um i think this springs us back to a kind
An largely national uh our national list paradigpicures um so and more recently uh not only translators
Travellers also tend to be accused of projecting their home culturit onto foreign lands uh so that also reminds me um so are those influencers from all over the world
For example like on tiktok
嗯like
呃like like
来选赞
Who approached india through confusion training
We inevitably a look at foreign culture through the length of our motherland
And um not only that sometimes we also ubring ing ing like a foreign culture to motherland
I yeah
Yeah No
I think you're so right
The you know we're talking about travellers
A sort of related figures to translators
And
And there too
I think especially
Recently be've gotten
We've been very negative about their travelers
Along very much
Along the lines that you dedea just articulated that they
You know they don't know very much
Shaaping that they look they are outside ers
They are not don't have lived experience
This is a term used by the american left
Very much that only insiders uh are allowed to say something about their culture
Outsiders always have a foreign gaze
That's one of the terms
That's used
And so you know i should say there is of course their reasons
Why the the skepticism about travellers that has emerged
And it's true that we can all think of many examellers
Curcurinfluenansers
Ers and passed travellers
Who have up know nothing you know are not curious about the culture
That they are visiting and just behave badly and a blind
And then go back
And think that they have i don't know experience
Something important
I mean they're million of bad examples
And i'm
I'm skewinter of that
But i think we've gone too far in only favoring the internal view or the the lived experience
Or that that that an outside perspective is always bad of false
And i've been really struck in looking at deep history
Here that um you know to come back
To show on shung one more time
That there
There is something um
That um a outsider seas
And more importantly bothers to record
That members of a society would never bother to record
Because it's their every day experience
That there's nothing remarkable about then they don't even
Aren't even aware of it
Or if they aware of it
Think it's not uh
Uh h would never bother to write it down
Which is why
For example
We know more about india during shoansong's time
Because of shoansongg because he recorded it with remarking on describing sculptures and buildings
That no longer exist that people who live among these buildings
Everyday would not bother to record adding reflections
Observations about daily practices and so so that that these outside perspectives if they are 一楼combined with curiosity and some basic knowlegy and of course so on chhnang had a lot of knowledge about buddsm
For example
Not about indian general
But that
But about buddosm
That that an outside perspective can actually be very valuable uh
And that outsiders see things and remark upon things
So so siders don't see our remarkon so so i think that i
I'will struck by that uh in in many cases in the book and so draw from me
The conclusion that as i said we
We have been part of that naperalism or ethnal tribalism or
Or identity politics
So however you want to college
We've gone too far in saying the only auvaluuthat is the native informment to use a term from anthroplogy
So shonas an influencer
And then us as an ordinary young person withabout uh like the resources and persevity of 玄奘
Or the influence ence uh influluences
Ers
How should we contribute in maybe our daily life and work as an active cultural mediator yeknow you know
Yeah Yeah
No a that's a good question
I mean
I think this connects is something we've said before that that curiosity uh uh
I think uh
And not having sort of preconceptions about other cultures uh
Or you know just curious and trying to learn something about other cultures
Or in some sense on some level easier than ever before because of social media and available translations uh hhhh resresourtime on gansgtions uh uh uh uh
We talked about so much about translations
So in some sense
It's very easy to immerse yourself in some form
You know
I know people who spend their time on google maps
Uh uh uh travelling to other countries on google maps
And they recognize the street
You can that there's this gaames where they
Where they drops that
Where they socia medibefore from somewhere around the world
Trtransby the way this road looks or the the cars look uh
嗯 可以
Without even seeing writing or anything like that or or and the vegetation nowhere it is on the world uh
And so you know in some sense
It's very easy
But it's also confusing because so much is available
You know in
In some se se
You have to some
It may also be overwhelmmbut
But ah i think for me so there's you know know thinking about what is what are the resources that are available
What can i do
If i can chat that around the world maybe
Or if certain regions are inaccessible for certain groups of people
We
You know we live in an age
Where globalization is under threat
So even travels become hard uh um
Visas are becoming harder to dead for certain parts of the world
For certain people
Even the digital infrastructure is no longer quite as uh uh
You know the internet is sort of fragmenting to some extent um into various regions um
But there's a lot that's possible
And i think the cultivating is certain attitude in values
I think is more important than technical questions
How do i access a or or what should i do um
And so that's i think the important thing uh cultivating um attitude of curiosity
Um um that uh that i think is more important than yah do you have a large following or can you yourself take cell fees in front of certain monuments that strikes me is um
You know maybe less important
Now let's keep the curiosity
The attitude going um and moving a bit back to culture in large
So you argue like all ideas
The story proceed along a single access of evolutional or evolution had to be invented
And it was fully established
And the le of society that believe itself irravically moving forward
So um that means the development of civilization is not a simple linear progression
It's filled with uh accidental encounters and uh very complex uh interconnections
So if nonlinear than which direction
Do you pppose this is a big question
Do you suppose humanity or civilization is moving today
Uh would you regard it more less uh progressing
Or may be more complicated than that it it
It is as you suggest more complicated
It was asinterefor for me to see just what had to be in place
In order for this progress narrative to qualiless
And uh also of course there is a sort of a question of technical technological progress
And in some that's really qualiless than the nineteen century full bone or in eighin
The nineteen centuries in in europe at least and america
And maybe in other places
Uh at slightly different times
And of course we are still in that uh um era in some sense
You know we all expect the next iphone to be better than the recon
You know the current iphone
I mean that
We don't even think about that
That just goes without saying
And so we are still
And we are very much shaped by you know we are living a progressive age
Technical progressive age hhi being most progresone
And i know you want to maybe talk about that in a second so that narrative still exists on some level so that technology and science
Though i have to say recent events in the us kind of anti science turn and attack on universities
You know also shows that
That
That does does not go unchallenged
Always there can be back backlash against science and technology
Also um from various perspectives um
But the question then is does does that paradigm of progress that holds for technology
Also hold for societies and cultures at large
And that's
I think when it becomes much more complicated when i'm
You not mentioned before
And far from the only one
Who 's
Who observve said we are we live in a time of backbzation against globalization
But it had it ggominated the world also twenty five years maybe
And that backlash takes many different forms
And i'm also not saying that everything about globalization was great
You know
Although i do think that i am at hard kind of gloloalialithan
And i had if you hold a gun to my head
And i had to choose i would probably i chochoose globalization
But i It's
I think also important not to um dismiss anti globalists as always just bad people or idiots uh
I understand the
I will try to understand the mechanisms that lead that there that that globalization can dead to cultural anxieties who are we uh are we being taken over by foreign
You know cultural products um uh and so and and so force so in any case it is more complicated
And i think that um that uh kind of triumph story of globalization is now being clealy questioned in many parts of the world
And and we we have to kind of we figure out
How we how we think about that um and maybe come up with a better forms of globalization um so that kind of triumpant progress uh in terms of culture clearly or politics um um a kind of liberal western capitalist view um
You know clelady is not one that uh yeah
It seems to me
That certain bits and pieces were taken of and sort of disaggregated um so yeah
So i think i don't have the answer
And it's always very hard to say smart things about the current moment
Because you don't have perspective thought
I think one thing we can say for sure is that that simple
We are all moving in the same direction um clearly that stories no longer true
And there uh and
And so that that that's a confusing uh
But also in some sense
That's what i try to tell myself interesting uh you know a le global marritive is being changed uh
And that's uh that's interesting yeah
Definitely you mentioned like people lture can learn i own distant past for potato
It's he's invented a history of atlanlans
And for confishous the past was an ideal born from discussed with the present
He even singled out uh this distinct uh historical period as an ideal
So it seems like throughout our long human history
It's a very common idea that uthe golden age was in the past
And we need to restore it
But um as we just mentioned things started to change
Uh since the nineteen cenceny the world has has hurddling toward future
And uh since i think have changed again in our modern age
So what do you think is our common attitude towards the past
Uh and how does such attitude might maybe shape our culture today
Yeah um again hard to talk about the present
But i'll try um it
It seems to me
So you know one thing that we sort of inherit from the age of historism is to have a very concerted interest in the past and recover ancient monuments and excavate
And that's interesting that since then in since we've been learning more and more about the past
More parts of the past are being excavated and found
Uh
Uh you know every day um in china and everywhere so we are learning more things about the past at the same time
I think the way we access the past has changed ing
This has to do with our media culture
And and and
And the internet is that thinks the past seems to me
Um sort of simultaneously available and existent and very accessible
Uh parts of it at least um and accessible
Also it through yoututube videos and son and so forth um and mass tourism
Uh of course to the extent that it still exists
And it still exist and so it
It's interesting that that the past is becoming more more something that is sort of accessible in some form that you can sort of picking choose from you know i was struck in
When i was in shanghai
Uh last month that that exhibit on on ancient egypt seem to be one of the best sellers in in the museum world
And was sold out everywhere
Even through interenight
And so it's interesting that that there is a really pieces in the past um
And when it becomes that's specispecial story
Because there are these original pieces where available for this exhibition
And and and and i was really struck by the enormous interest that ii realized uh uh um in shanghai
I you coming ing
From all to to to see this exhibit on ancient egyption parpart of it are very easily accessible
The way it was n't before before there's a
There's a kind of simultcanendian i expose uh of
And it's in pieces of the past that are available in digital form
And that and that changes things
Uh uh i'm not quite sure how
But that that the past becomes
It becomes available in new ways
I think that that that i would say is is is a change um um there is less effort required
Even though you know i exposed the egypt exhibit in shanghai
Is a is is is a kind of conter example
Because there it was one exit night
And you have to go there
And you have to get tickets
And you know it's laate night
Because that's the only slaught you get is the midnight slaught
And you stay up and go go
So that that that i guess that that that shows that there continues to be um a real interest in the original artifacts
But yeah
Something about that uh uh
I don't quite no what uh what prediction to connect that
But that that seems
That seems relatively uh h your your mention tion like culture survive and flourish in part by stealing from the ppast
But also by the surprises they find in other cultures they encounter
And as you famously put culture surrives on intanglement on purity on borrowing culture uh forms not on locking them away um
So culture does not have a passport
However as you just mentioned in today's world
There are some backlash uh like antiglobalization
We seem to have witnessed a strong resurgence of nationalism and cultural like nativism
How do you view this tension between like cultural
I fluidity and cultial curity
Your question already hints i think at an answer is that it there are some people who experience that nationidity
And maybe that availability of so much culture from so many parts of the world in digital form as overwhelming in it
And it can be overwhelming ii think i get that um and so if you can choose among a make more cultutuuh and
And acaccess them that seeseems possipossible
So i think that you then try to come up with filters in some sense to make um that world more navitable
To make it more manageable
Um it
It's something
Something i actually didn't quite think while writing the book
But in a conversation uh actually heard harvard with someone we're talking mostly about this
That's more like aus
呃呃
Invention or worse
What sometimes called voke or this kind of identity politics
And
And he said that the reason
Why that movement um where like a se exextreme me m talexamericexexexnanaextreme me sait's a we've talk about chinese culture everything elseis cultural appropriation
Or it's like a foreigners trying to take culture away
Or impose their view sort of what 've ve talked a little bit before really stuamericextrethe fors for that internet generation where so much was available all the time
And where you basically had to come up with some principal to reduce it
And so that identity politics was one principle to reduce uh
That uh uh
I'm
I'm that overwhwhelmvariety or the all of those options um
And i think that what i took away
And i think there's a really some truth to that
And so what i
What i for me try
Try take
Take away from that inside is to hononor the eleling of overwhwhelmed that people might have um also i think connected to that on the internet
If you
You know
If you grow up with the internet
Um you're always sort of just two clicks away from horrible stuff right toxic stuff of various forms
And so that you also then feel that you have to be super careful
You know what you click on what you could
What you are connected to whose comments
You you know
You you
You like or dislike so that that the world including than the cultural world becomes full of trappings and mistoxings and in toxicity
And that you really need to it's a bment upon you to say what's got and bad and what what you approve of and don't approve off
And what you need to stay away from so that to what i think instill in people a very um how to describe it um skeptical or anxious a sense and but also a kind of moralizing paradigm or sense that that bad things can happen very easily or you could be in wrong anyway
And as i said pisa are not my thoughts
But this is someone who came up to me uh after a talk i gave about cultural appropriation
And
And that actually made me think a lot
And so i think that ah again what i take away from that is to honor that feeling that
That there's best ad ff ff that
That we have to pick in shoes
And that we um
But there is a question of what's toxic
And not
But then not to to to honor that
And to think about what what can feel overwhelelming about the past
And where we have to of course always judged based on our current political ormoral um opinions
But nevertheless retain that corte curiosity that we talked about earlier
And i think think can get lost in that moralizing sort of doom loop uh uh on the internet uh and to think about other ways of filtering uh and handling overwhwhelming um h variety possipossiiliilities
The princiciple is out there uh this is relatively abstract
Please let me know
If if if that doesn't make sense
But this is sort of how i try to understand it currently um
This is an angle that a perspective
That i never thought about um because gggeneris often ten fer er uh gglobal like global citizens
But strangely we also seem like more eager than the previous generation to seek our local and
And cestal identity
Uh hhh ah ah
This is very inteintesting ciperspecis to look at he said nowadys like young people all over the world
They are so similar
Because they are all the like the mow generation so we share this uh common like logic of commercial
Like a in the
In a commercial world
We can understand the logic of like the shopping center
The shopping mall
And i think this is also very conrested in china
Young people from different places come to work and live in big cities like shanghai
Sometimes they don't really feel like belonghere
But neither can they go back to their hometime because
And they come so far with their education uh and their experiences so in the us there are even more young people we all over the world
Working and living together in a big city
Sometimes they would feel very confused or even homeless so how should they identify themselves and their trtricy sitsituations
Yeah
No i mean
I sympathii mean
You know know grogrep in most in germany um
I lived in italy a little bit before i moved to united states in my uh sort of early to met twenty is i think it's twenty four um
When i moved to states um and so in some sense you um
You realize
I realize just in some sense how german
I've also what it meant to be german
Once you know i lived in a different country
And you know just to come back to show on shhang one more time
I feel like he went through the same process
Because
Because there's this moment
His
His uh hh in didiary
Where um he records that he
He in his out comes the fifteen years to go home to china people in india
Ask him
What why why would you want to do that haven't you come to india
To be in the near the source of budism of bubuda
Where he lived and come to these indian monasteruries and
And living this in this world
That you
You know left china to live in
And then outcomes this outboard burst of i sort of interpreted
And i think greattly as an outburst of confutionism
Where he suddenly his earlier
Earlier chinese confusion training comes in
And he talks about how well regulated the state is
And how uh wonderful the music
And how orderly
And you know just
Just that
That set value ue suddenly erupts uh uh uh
And i think he realizes how chinese is uh precisely
Because he is just spent sixteen years in um in india
So i it a small way
I and many people you know report that um and
And so i um hh spspent uh uh periperiod
After
After first h momoto to the states to actually study much more of gererman european literature and culture
Than i had done for uh um
Um there's also a little bit
Because there's always you know when you as a german arrive in america than in in the cultural literary world
Than people say oh
Culturit about german literature
You should become an expert in german literature
And i think state that there's a similar
I see this often with you know my chinese students
Everyone tells them
Oh
You should become an expert in chinese literature
Your represent that here here americamericeven though they may be interested in something else so
But you know there there re's always that dynamic
But it's also you know ii felt uh uh an interest
Oh
But does it but
But is that formation that i just sof took for granted and suddenly in a different culture
You look at yourself in a different way
So that that to say that i am interested in my own um traditional or ancestal uh uh tradition
As you say i don't think that's a bad saying at all um um as long
And maybe that's the uh uh uh on the additional thought as it doesn't shut down other possibility so just in my own biography
After then in americad stustuying all spending up quite a bit of time
Not exclusively with
With german literature again started to go in a different direction and immerse myself growlliterature ure you know we went from like the to do different things
So so yeah
So ii think there re's part of own experiexperience
Erbileerphy that that sympathzes with that too
And ii wouldn't say it's
It's um in itself uh a bad thing not at all
I think it
It only becomes bad
When it becomes very exclusionary
H uh h and and and uh hhi think that we
We can all think exexamples
Where that where that's the case no you
You just mention use the example es shanzagain so and and just part from like the translators and travellers we talk a lot about you also discuss the crucial rose that women played in cultural inheritants
Such as uh queen nefertiity uh queen of she bi
I actually never heard about them
So there are stories are very fascinating
And also george elite who i'm um kind fasiliilious so in your research which discoveries about women if involved in culture
Surprised you the most the think about well so you don't never ertit is a good example
Where i knew about her
Because that statue of neertiity is so famous um you i think it's one of the most striking statutes and from ancient egypt
And it also so happens
And it
It know has been for the last ever since it was excavated in germany
So i even though i had only seen it for the first time uh
I think uh maybe fifteen years ago um
But so ii knew about it
I'd seen it
It's such an iconic image
But i didn't know anything about nevertid so learning her story
That she isn't just this image
But this was this incredibly important queen
It's a little bit hard to say in rettrospect theare some people who feel like i slighly exaggerated the importance of nevertiity
It's sometimes hard to say um you know she decided
And what her husband the faerreo decided um
But clearly she was very important so learning her full story was really eye opening
Even though i knew her as an image
As an icon so to speak
And also interesting to learn how her history
Her actions
Her influence was deliberately erased by later egyptian uh things and dynastis uh uh
I think we use this word erastes uh much too much uh in culture
It's become sort of a uh uh uh a jargaon
But when it comes
It was literally erased from lists
Uh so that was
Was intesting
But um um when would say that in
When it comes
You know this is a kind of a recovery
One way of describing my approach to culture that you mentioned that they are always
We always go back to the past
And we discover new things about the past and sort of our view changes
And i think one big recovery
呃 嗯
Uh effort has been now for many decades to um recovered women riders and figures in history
And so that you know there that that and and pioneering work of that has been done
Often decades ago i mean
I think this is an an effort
That's been many decades old so for example another figure that i write about uh the german mistake killed guard ard from funding
And this is a figure
Whose recovery started in the nineteen and eighties
Uh uh or seventies and eighty
So so so there um i wouldn't so i and and the pionering work of these
Often you know feminist scholars or scholars interested in women
In women riders
Um i didn't have to do the hard work
I uh
I was able to find the sources and draw on the scholarship and of of pioneering two generations at least of of scholars that try to recover over the role of um of women uh
But i think what's still missing in these kind of global histories is the the
The whole pattern of their work uh
And i think that's what i try to do in this book certain period
Periods
When women riders became particularly important
Uh uh two i would mentioned one is in japan
Where you have figures like more osaacachii keabuh and saonagon uh dominpe in some sense uh literary production uuh innovate literary production around uh inthousands uh ad in japan
And the other one i just mentioned uh the eupepe middle ages
Where a whole cluster of women often called mistakes uh uh uh regard from being in meketofrom from marketer burg ua didiof halse uh uh others uh uh julian of nororage uuh h 're really central
And and i think it so that that ii in my and i'm a in my book
I wanted to make sure that that that gets represent ted and and part of becomes part of the global maragon um
So you mentioned um a female writers also a novel st in japan
An so noveeli i first consider to be closely related to women
Whether written by women or about women and uh engbook
You said the first englil is deconnouvel well acaccorto ua book that i translated desire and domestic
The first english novel is partminla uh
Therefore novels are usually considered uh to be and irrelevant to big world
That is like politics
Economics and the like history um
George george ite h hehihistorical novels might be an exception um
But does it mean that other novels about women or written by women
Such as priprejudice
Jan air ah they have nothing do do with history
With the big world
Yeah Well
That's
It's very interesting um
I mean
I think there many things to be said about that
I would say that the view of the novel as female that you articulated is i think that's true
That in the sense
That that's an idea
That's floating around culture
But that there was actually a period
That a very male idea of the erature of even of the novel was told
Where the first novel
The first moden novel was seen as stonkey hota are about to donkey hota
Where the first important english novel was seen as i don't know twist and shandy or fielding uh in you know in the eighteen century
And then sof a male
And then they was acup english novel t's say um h kind of epic idea of the novel as a sort of modern epic
So there was actually a time
When when a very that say mall was toeven even of ala oul uh was told where susubstwhere where in the nineteen century with a rise of mass literacy in england
For example a lot suddenly women became readers of novels
Especially french novels
And when there were suddenly a cultural anxiety about novel reading and especially women being too impressed uh the flobears uh madam bowberry a lot dnovel about that
Where madam bowbery is a character
Who basically reads all these would trash novels
Let's and then tries to have the fantasy of living it these novels
And then that's kind of ruins her life
So you know so so that
That would there emerged a kind of anxiety about novels and certain novels
And certain novel readers
Women readers
And that was very interesting
And i think what what your the story you are telling is sort of inflected by that as well
But then you had all these recoveries were suddenly
We were reevaluating again
I would say under the influence of second way feminism is we were reevaluating that view of the novel
And then suddenly also also more global view of the novel
And suddenly a new story of novel uh emerges
Where for example the tail of genji is seen us
Oh
There were novels way before panela away before don kkota and yes
They have written by women
And so so that was one change i would say
And the other is sort of the the importance of the domestic space or the social space
I would say where we realized that
Yes
So i think the last thing i'll say about the novel is that there's also been a reevaluation of thing
That even the noves you know focus on the domestic or uh
Or on the court as in the case of uh
Where ssychii keyboo and sashonagon
Or on the monastery in the case of this um
Duropean medieval mistakes that
That is very important
That that means that the novel is very attuned
Psysylology
Interperperononrelarelaships uh
And
And all of that and that uh you know it doesn't always have to be capital age history
That the eomstistiis to important uh hh know the y of experience and um
Um so yeah
So i think there are
There are many ways to tackle
But um
But i think one reason perhaps
Why i chose george alliot over um other one nine enand century writers is because she does both she is very interested in larger systems uh
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In philosophy as well as a narrative
Actually the golden age of novel also witnessed the rise of the middle class um a lot of novels in the nineeighth century
Especially domestic novels are centered around this question
What makes a woman desirable able
The answerin most novels is uh a woman with virtue
Which put a middle class mistress at an advantage against the aristcratic woman whose blast with noble blood and be fortune and maybe even stunding appearance um so that is on more external than eternal strength in this way
Novels actually implicitly justify and elevate the authority of the middle le press um
And today the internet is changing
How we read and right how literature spreads
And who has access to it
Now everyone seems to have a voice or able to write their own story instead of reading the stories told life
Um say some upper middle class established the writer
But again sometimes it still seems we only have access to certain very prevalent kind of stories or narratives
And what kind of change
Do you think the new media like showed videos
Everybody is watching these days will bring to our society
I think you're right in during the goooden berg age
It was easy to be an author
And uh uh no sorry
It was easy to be a reader
It's the age of mass literacy
But still difficult to be an author
You had to find a publisher
And you know few people were authors
Especially professional authors
Mass readers
And with the internet
Everyone can be an author
Everyone can put their stuff out
There doesn't mean that everyone gets hard
And so this is you know people were talking about the attention economy
The big resource in the on the internet is attention
Individual attention
And that's what people compete for um so be know influences
Ers i be there
There are many ways in which that landscape gets structured
But um uh
But i think the fundamental difference that it's easy to be an author
Now it's easy as it used to be
Just to be a reader
Is true and of that changing
Uh doesn't
It doesn't mean that it's a utopia
You know where everyone can be equally heard um
But maybe we need to rethink that utopia
That is impossible
That everyone gets equally heard uh
Because of that attention
That finite resource called attention apart from short videos
Podcasts are also getting wine more popular
So the thing is very few
People read books
These days they either watch short videos or when they want some deeper input they resort to podcasts
I think this is quite intriguing
Because human civilization seems to be developing from oral storytelling to all storten words
But now it seem to be more incline to oral storytelling again
What do you think about this
Yeah
Well i mean
I think we are
I think we are storytelling animals um
So i think telling stories is really crucial to how we operate
I think constantly tell ourselves
Stories about ourselves about our relationship to others about our relationship to the world historical
Grand historical stories
We talked about some the golden age versus
Propross
Ss h
You know domestic stories
National stories
Global stories
So i think that it will never go away
I think that's just who we are as a species
And then there are different story ory technologies
I mean this is what i mostly studied in the written world
You know from paper to print and the internet now
And
And all of these technological changes
Change not only stororally circulate
And how they get read technologically
But they also change what kind of stories get
Get told
You know which we who has access to stories for whom
And so and so far
So all of these are big changes
But so these are just descreer and just descriing neutrally
How it changes rather than saying good or bad
I think that
嗯
When i think about i and i tend to not moralize storytelling
Although i think in some sense
Maybe be sometimes have to i think the place
Where i have
You know ght
Ght about most directly good or bad stories has to do with stories around climate change
So that sort of a concrete challenge
That you know we all face and where i felt like okay
What can
What can the things i know about name me different types of stories over history
You know how can that help with climate change
And there i didn't notice that in the climate activist community
Which i have some connection to when the that we all read about on
On the internet there are certain stories of about the climate
About climate change
That i think got entrench um stories that have that are very moralizing
And that very quickly reverge to certain villains
And so for example oil companies or people who drive you know non electric cars or i don't know people like me who fly around a lot uh or people who eat me
I'm a vegetarian
But so that's so but any case you
You see what i mean they are certain cerum
I think among climate activists
There were certain stories about virtue and vilaence
That that got i think entrenched
And i started to feel like that those stories were actually counbebecoming counterprotectves
They were pissing people off
They were people reacted very allergically to those stories
And i think they were also partly wrong
Because it's not just climate
It's not just oil companies
That are the problem
Uh uh you know in climate
But so i think that there was a alalical stories ccliate ate uh that became very coltacaced
Then i starthat i started to see critically
And so so that elt like we need
Felt like we need different stories about for example stories not just about single mories
But about collected collective action
Because climate change is a collective action uh hh problem
So i started to tion about which story stories in the history of literature are good at telling collective stories and collective action stories in any case
So that's where i um started that's i think sort of the one problem
Where i decided not just to be a scholar and describe neutrally changes
But where i myself started to itknow intervene and say what's good or bad
But in general ii usually i try to describe rather than evalvaluate
Whatever form it takes
And however the technology evolves we never stopped telling stories um why is that and uh what des of story telling
Nowadays do you think we should be aware of and critical about
And what kind of story telling do you think is constructive for the society
Yes
Ii would just to be clear
I don't doubt
You know human made climate change
But there are so many stories around it also you know with the sudden apopocalliptic end that that's another story type that in the climate is course that i became very critical off
Because i think these apopocliptic scenario the very deep
You know from hihistory of culture that come to the surface again
And i think are not scientific
I mean climate change will be bad
I think there's no doubt in my mind
But they the the apocolyptics scenario are exaggerate
I think by and large
And they
But they came with a kind of scientific claim
And they also became counterproductive
Because then people feel paralyse so anyway so yes
There are stories around climate change
Which i totally believe
And that that i think became entrenged in certain communities
Two years ago
You created these ai models
That allow users to converse with famous motists and philosophand and change makers um
But i've heard a lot of concern about ai especispecifrom stolars ts art ts and communities
So i'm kind of the surprise that get communities with the trend so fast um to be honest
Do you also feel a bit intimidated at first you know ii mean i did
But it's actually exintesting that that same eapple colyptic stories that get told commhuunities fast um be memeately also get told about ai
I and so i mean
Yes ui i can also worry about the effects of ai
Mostly on labor
You know on jobs
And so i'm so soft
It's a big big disruptive technology um
But i have to say for the most part i just was fascinated by it
Because here
Because it's basically a writing bed technology uh
Yeah
You know i study writing
And so here's the thing that right um
And so i think that i have lots of things to say about it
And that know how we don't have time for that because i do have to go soon
But i think that the main thing i would say about ai
But people's especially in the kind of fear tradition or upper colyptic tradition
They considerate almost like an alien that has dropped into our mist
And that somehow vacuums up our riding
And then sort of is manipulating us
And i think the most important thing about ai is that it's not an alien
It comes from us
That we it's based on our technology
Mostly on writing and and mathematics
Uh it's fat on our language production and our stories and our knowledge
And is recombining that
And is feeding that back to us in some form
And the the other thing
And this is where the chat bots come in
I think it's not mostly a lot of worriabout or or debates about ai is can ai do aahh can can
Can create culture
Can it make scientific discoveries
And i think those partilations are almost entirely wrong
Because the way to reformulate them is how we use it
Will we be able to use ai
To tell stories
Will we be able to use ai
Because it's a tool to create art
Will we be able to use ai
To make scientific discoveries
And i think the answer to these questions is always yes we will be
And you know people are already doing
People have crecreated but with a particular use of ai uh
You know i'm a tolegraphic
The turkish uh uh uh uh artist is making great art uh uh with uh
With using ai as a tool
There already discoveries being made using ai
So that's my
My main thing
So because i've emphasize the style logic
Let's say emphasis uh uh angle
I started to create these chat bots with these philosophers
I long studied uh
And the cool thing is yes
You can take basically a corps of texts
And have a dialogue with a corpus of texts
And that i think it's a
It's a cool way of accessing the past
It's much more inwaited for students often to to speak to a corpus of text
Rather than read it aliline by line
Which can be very hard
So yes I
I've become quite uh interested in that
Now that artificial intelligence has been applied in artistic creation like writing
Painting
Composing music um
How do you feel the role of ai as a cultural creator
Is this a radical change in the history of cultural evolution
Or is it merely a new tool um
And so i have friends who like really dislike books that are generated by by ai so do you think it is nececessary to have human man behind a great literature
Or maybe does
Does it depend on different tyxes books
So i think the the the
The most important word in the way you cermulate this question is the totally yes
If i will one prom t please ii write a novel x
And i you know send uh the result will be very bad
And will continue to be bad
Because in part i is very bad at creating long texts
Because the degrees of freedom get bigger and bigger
And so it becomes random
But so yeah
I think that
That will continue to be probably not the way to create is don't interesting stories
But um the way i would reformulated
Is will good stories be created in collaboration with aii think the ansoris
Yes
I tion the the most collaboration
Mean
It mean i'm using i certainly do that a lot ai as a research assistant
It's much easier to researarcertain ina it
I can use aiia spspring partner too you know to bounce ideas about characters and plot back and forth
Maybe i can even use aii to experiment with different styles and perspectives
So i think there are lots of ways off
And i could also imagine someone you know
And i've experienced
Experimented that a lid creating basically very specialized assistance like feeding a custom chat bot with certain stories or certain ideas about a project
Like a project uh assistant uh uh
And then to use it to generate feedback and so in so forth
I agree that if we talk about writing
You know the actual sentences
Most btences created by ai are not interesting
They are not what um tend to be very clear very structured but not attentengragrabbso
So you I
I'm never because i like wrding
I think i'm good at writing
I not attempted at all to let ai write my paragraphs
But i am certainly using aia lot in different forms
As i said as a research assistant
As a sparing inding ers most bounces creas off off
And in other ways as well
And so i think this will become much more question of individual choice
And
And you know just the way in which now different writers some decided to write by long hand
Some you know use word processors
Others use
I don't know what um
You know it's commment
It will come
Come a question of individual style
Different authors use the steool
And some will use it not at all
And some will use it for certain purposes
I think there's some kind of feedback um uh on your end um in the fuase uh
So that's what i think uh it's a tool in different people will figure out how to use it
Now i feel like i still can very easily tell when uh some texts are written by ai
But in the future
When ai can perfect tly imitate human emotional expressions
Now i feel think it's the most replaceable essence of being human in cultural creation and emotional connection
Yeyeah ii think it's um
And it actually goes back to the question of these custom gps
Uh i've created
I think writing is always infused with personality
And personality means the lived experience of an individual
Right the experiences being in the world
All the all the things had go it into creating a person
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And so i think one reason
Why if you just use a general chat bot and have it produce ed text
It just seems very general invade
Because it's not created by a personality by a person um
However when you create the specialized chat bots as i do like confusious uh for example um
You are essentially creating kind of an anfictional character
You know you take a corpse of texts
And you um you shape it like a person
And it's of course based on aa particular set of texand it gets becomes a little closer to having a personality
And so i could as so my
My assumption would be that the more ai can approximate personhood or like a distinctive personality
The more plauble it would seem to me
That it could produce a distinctive a type of riding
Now there's it
I would propose another way of looking at it
嗯
When i started to study literature um in the uh late eighties and early nineties in germany
There was a school of literary theory that i found in retrospect even more convincing than i did at the time
And that was called reception theory that basically said a texts is not the marks written on you know with engon paper on your computer streing
A text is something that gets produced
Coo produced by the interaction of this artifact
That these you know marks on paper or whatever and a reader and a text itself is really only that interaction and that the reader is really the most active part of that interaction
So it's really readers who bring life to a text
It's really a reception based theory of riding in some sense
The most extreme form of the theory say it doesn't matter who produced or
Or what produce the text
What matters is how it is being read ad how that dyyamamic it is created um
And so so i think that what matters formore is the reception
So so that question will be how will we read texts
That are or will we read texts
That are produced by very personalized ai in interaction maybe with human operators
And so i think that yes
I think that seems like a plausible future
So we talk a lot about artificial intelligence
About new social media
New technology um
So if 玄奘and michael polo radiation cultural mediators
I guess algorithms
Social media and ai have become today's new and powerful cultural mediators right um
And although social media can facilitate the circulation of culture
It also seems to exacerate ate polpolarization viewpoints
We seem to be trapped by new cultural cocoons for example
I feel like uh female friends and male friends around me
They are exposed to very different kind of information
So what's your suggestion to young people regarding this how to step out of the comfort zone brought by algorithm
Well they've become the technologies for mediators
You know marco polula an he returned from his travels
He actually a turned to a professional writer to help him write his travel
So he didn't just author them himself so on shanggg
Of course did
But a micropolo clearly realized
Oh
There are something i need to do to make this interesting to the general public
And then the temployed or you know expert a co author uh or
Or ghost writer
Or however would want to call it today uh to do that
And you know we could say that
That similar to somesomeone h don't know hiring someone to do in media campaign
Or you know to
You know i'm a traceller
I hire someone to do my social media account
Uh Uh so
Um so absolutely so
But those are the technologies
You know cultural mediator to and the technologies matter
But i think you absolutely write the principle uh remains the same yeah so as a technology is like the technology evolves ah like social media
It facilitates the circulation of culture
That's for sure right
But it uh you you you uh you made this matphor um like so basically it
It means like it also social media also seems to exacererate the polariarization of view points
I cannot remember the metaphor are very clearly
But i think that's what you mean there and uh we so we seem to be trapped by new cultural cocoons like for example
I feel like my male
My male friends and female friends around me
They seem to be exposed to very different kind of information
But of course this is just an example
It's because only wordeal it's about like different groups being expose to different kind of information
Um um what's think
Yeah
What do you think
I don't know that
I have something in particular to say about it ii don't think we talked about that aspect
I think yesterday we talked about the the fact that they theare so much material on the internet
That people feel overwhelmed
And then create these filters
Whether they are based on identity or other filters to screen stuff out
Um h
Because they're worried about you know
Because you can't deal with the overwhelming nature
You're touching on something different namely right this cocoons
Um um h think
Think you're absortely right
Many people worry about that um i don't know that
That i have sosolution cepcept that need
Need find
Find a way out of our cocoons
And whether that can be
Whether we can trust
I don't know social media companies to change that algorithms
I don't know
So i think ybe
This is something that we need to cultivate that so h think know know know know
Get to new sources or cultural sources
That aren't just part of one media feed um so um
Social media network um so um
But you know that's not a very interesting solution at this stage
It's just we are kinddoomed to be trapped in this cultural cocoons
If we are using social media
So maybe it's better to for us to have multiple resources apart from just the social media
Like we can also use books
And uh just talk to real people um
I agree
I agree
I think you're right
So do you think uh in the last chapter i remember you talked about uh k pop
Do you think the success of kip hop is a victory clclassicuculin the contemporary year
Or do you think it's a victory of pure commercialism and popularity
Like how could we fairly evaluate the value of popular culture
Of course there's a lot of commerce
But i would not
I mean ii would not just because it's commercially successful
It's not a reason to look down on it or saying it's not culture um is interesting
I was in a conversation uh last week because uh soft power
Cultural soft power
You know that
It's a term that joseph nine um uh a colleague just just had last year developed in during the cold war primarily with the us and the soviet union
Both using k pop as a kind of soft power
Diplomatic soft power
And i bowas really thinking about doing that conversation it didn't come up
But i was thinking about cupop because i think k pop
Because i best contemporary example
I can think of uh as an example of soft power
And here's why because uh i study
You know i stuted a little bit the history of k pop
And i was in japan last uh
Uh in in in so uh last summer for a month uh
And got a little more inside
And and was interesting is that it was started for the month as a government initiative to crea government cultural industry essentially
And so it was definitely so there was a long term plan and a kind of public private uh collaboration to create a culture industry
And that in some sense set the economic
So yes
Definitely there's a commercial interest here
And then
Then the content of the music
That that's what i really focused on it's much more bary
You know they're oring ing
You know jazz and american music and and korean song traditions
And you can
You even go further back uh
And think about the kind of music that korean uh uh uh singing troops performed for the american soldiers
During the fifties at the
You know during and and in the aftermath of the korea more so that you know there are many so ha fusion
But it's
It's fascin to see that take wer
And i do think it's uh hh question tion of
Of ofofpower
And And if
If you go to sol
Everything is branded ay
You know it's not no longer truss music
It's of course television
But it's everything is key
Something and so it
It's fascinating korean
Something right exactly well
But of course it means korean
But it i think it has acquired something more specific namely it's wrding this p up wave
You know it's also called in korean the wave and so it's also come a to
To signal not just business business korea
You know it's this hip culturally globally successful culture well
But it tapping into
And that all kinds of other the commercial interest in other things in uh
You know in korea are
Are jumping onto that way ve fascinating um
But you know i mean
I'm not saying the
You know it's popular music um
But there's something that really hit uh unearth
And of course it also started with the you know the history of youtube uh gangm m stle was was first first ybe you know hit that uh hit of uh a billion uh you so so scient so ffor so you know many many things come together um
And but yeah for me
If i
If i think about kp hop it's it you know it is a brilliant branding
It's a long term cultural policy
It managed to core less in a way that uh you know captured audiences from china to america
I mean it's very interesting
Also to think that
That it's korea
That manage to do that i think you could do a kind of geo put you know cultural geopolitics analysis uh um
And so that you know there
There are many things to say so it's fascinate a um um it's fascinating
So it looks like uh
According to your um description
Uh k pop is much more than just an accident
It has like long scheme uh public policy
And also it integrated a lot of elements in it um
Yeah
I think that makes sense
Because if h uh
If we don't deal with value at odd
So if we say every a culture product is the same is equal
Then i think that is kind like uh cultural relativim like uh the the whole history of art will be meaningless
And but i think ak hop is not a example of this um
But i think about that makes me think about another example
And it's actually quite funny um
I have a friend
I think think eite a german boyend end um uuh h quite many years like five or six years ago
And during that time
There's something also uh h it's quite a hit chchinesong caught 学猫叫
But don't know whether you heard about the song
It's not as popular as uh gunststyle
But um so the song goes like um h the that think 学猫叫一起ii heard that i didn't know what it qua ud i mthat yeah
It was very popular of um um
But the as you can see the the the melody is very like simple and catching and lyrics are kind cities like let's learn how to cat and h so my the german boyfriend
He my uh
My friend got
Also my friend got really pissed off
And she even got into this big fight with him
So he's like
Sh's like how can you like this song ong like lolome me the same time
Yes so shhe's a bit like overwhelming
But uh i can really relate to her
Because i think like this is a example of like success of pure popularity um it's not really high quality kind of thing
But that will create this sense like this is um a bit unfair um
But i can also kind of relate to her x boyfriend
Yes so now she's x boyfriend
Hesomesometimes we know like deep down some cultural product
They are uh quite a silly or superficial not a good quality
But still somehow we cannot resist being drawn to them
I feel like this is uh to me
It's like guilty pleasure
Like i also read a classics
A books
But sometimes i will also watch uh c drama
K drama or um short videos
Um yeah
What about you me too
And you know ii think that just just they do do different things
You know
You you you
I mean we are humans
We do all kinds of things
Uh that a broad spectrum
I think if you
If someone is very narrow
And only will watch a certain kind of thing
That that seems kind of strange
Because i think you know be your social creatures and we and i think culture does a lot of things
And you know i imagine that you know when when i watch a kay drama um which i have to say i don't regularly do
But ii was you know in soul
I watched uh older one crash landing on you
I thought it was fascinating this particular k drama
Because it deknow be your socise the relation between sousousocial north carea don't
Don't know have you heard of it crash landing on you
Um it's about five years old
And uh uh a south korean sort of it's very success and areas
But also business woman it's on a glider and crashes into north korea
And then is picked up by a north korean soldier
And of course they fall in love
And then i think i heard about it
Yeah Yeah
It was very became very uh a successful think especispecially dvery ppdemiic sort think perhaps uh in anyway so it
It was actually it uh it's not the greaaaart work ever
But it's eactually a very interesting sort of popular um attempt to deal with the division of this country um um um but to come back to popular music
You know it's i imagine that participating in i mean
We would have to say a lot to explain it about fan culture about you know it's usually uh h young teenagers who have this uh oung kpp phase they feel connected
And um you know it's sort of a global feeling that you get um in my book
I mention this anecdote
I think i first became uh aware of cap hop when i was staying with the region friends in oslo
And there um twelve your old son um got twarn before school
Um so twelve year oelds on us otherwise to learn korean
Because he was so so for him cleener
It was also being connected
You know here he sits in norway
Uh uh
It's stark a lot of the time and through this music
He is connected something that's a very different world
That's very far away
And he gets curious about this world so for me that's certainly part of the circulation
But you are of course right
I also don't uh so to put it in terms of my book
I would say that they are sort of too conceptions of culture
That i contended with in the book
That i think i relevant to your question
The one two and underunderstandings of culture
And one one that that culture uh
It's really about the pnicles of culture
The high points yeah and each culture uh that culal very complex successful yeh that cuculture
That endure
And that cultural history uh studies those hh cuort of the pinnacles of culture
And i think to some extent my book
It's behalden to that
Because i don't just to rendom objects of culture
Many of them survive
Because they proved uh uh complex enough so that people from different times can interpret them
They are often crffted in a very high quality way
And so them so force
But then there is a second understanding of culture
Which is more a kind of anthropological al understanding of culture that basically ys
Wherever groups of humans are together
It about the culture
And it's the sort of a mix of practices and values and expressions
The search for meaning um and that can manifest and the food you ether and h you know popular songs you and that means basically that culture is everywhere
And that's the more relatiistic uh and
And i actually think that there's truth of both of these um that uh and that's why of some cases
Uh uh
You know i have want a jb my chapter on japan is about the grave great wave
But you know that h the famous of culwave uh uh uh h multicular prprinum
The the th th century
Which is not the pinicle of japanese culture
It was sort of a popular
It was a popular for of culture
And yet for various reasons
It became the the piece of japanese art
That travel the most uh uh
And that sort of came to stand for japanese art
So i am also interested reason and the finand kpp you could say is sort of perhaps our uh uh uh and equivalent it's not the most sophisticated form of contemporary rerean uh uh
But it's the one that travel for various reasons
And
And that is also a part of the history of culture um
So we uh we've talked a lot about um popular culture
And i'm wondering during uring this like which popular cucutural products
Do you think uh have the potential to become the new classics of the future us maybe like a new tv show or movie or game
Yeah It's
It's interesting
Because it's certainly true that um
You know some of the we talked a little bit earlier or really yesterday uh about mconcentury uh novest especially british novels
Yeah
And you could say that um some of these noellists taltalked about george alilier
But we could also talk about chilles
Ddkens
Those were seen in the nineteen phenomens sort of as mass culture
Um there these novels were serialized in newspapers
They were read by a large nobulum um h not everyone one
But these these mmass phenenenand
And then they became classics
Now they became classics in ways that may have surprised these talders themselves um that we would now teach stickens the in the same
Same breths with which we teach i don't know greek tragedy um in mmind
They would have that that this comcompledifferent
Different
This is mass hhgers
Every kk new new install ment comes out
It has to have to be cliff hanggers
And so and so forth it know know so so it's interesting that i think you're right that
But sometimes popular culture stands the test of time
A lot of the time
It doesn't you know
But sometimes it does
And it's
It's of course always hard to predict about your new cultural moment um
But you know there are
There are certain
So if you think about television
And in the the real h know know serial television
You h the golden age of ceial television
I mean started before netflix and the new streaming services about in the us
It started really in the two thousands um
And it's an interesting shience out nationally the more ambitious filmmakers would make feature films right
And sometimes they were owkward our house films
Sometimes they aged to become very popular
Where television was seen as more downmarket
More trashy more popular right
But then some sometimes in the two thousands
It flipped and suddenly there were very ambitious serial televisions
The most
The most successful example or those example that people mentioned in the us is uh um a police show
Called the wire
That is set in aultommore that starts as a police
Police it's set in an african american millio
There's a lot of drug use
There's a police
And then there's a drug dealers
It's ort of a classical police show
But then in subsequent a seasons
It becomes more and more about the city of baltimore
There's a season
That's about schools
And then there re's a season
That is set in the harbor with
With containers and the whole container ship
And then there re's a season
That's really about politics and the entlement of money and corruption in politics
Really there re's a season on and contemporary city life
And it's super well done
And it
It think think sort of started
It
It made people realize
Oh
Now really artistically ambitious art works can actually be on television
And it
And it started
And we are still in that
In that world
Where suddenly i think in some sense movies have become much more blockbuster mean have always been blockbuster movies
Where's um you know television show series
I mean there's 're very popular ones
Which just talked about the k pop ones
But there are actually
Artistically uh um very ambitious ones
Uso yeah
I think some of them will stend the test of time ii don't know which i only one i mention from the um early two thousands
The wire is definitely one there are now it's being taught in college classes
Uh you know very degular tely it's become part of this kind of history of culture
Where in people at the time
At the time
It
This is the neual stistikens
Because it's the same thing
It's cereal uh you know it's spent over many seasons
Theit's sort of one artistic master mind the show runner
That emerged the show runner was not a figure in television beforehand uh anyway
So so so definitely
I mean
I think definitely so most of popular culture will before gotten
But there will some
Will be some that will i think stand the test of time
The one you
You mentioned block busters as cannot like oppose to more artistic uh cultural products
That make me think about
I don't know
Whether you heard about this contemporary cultural hierqy chains
So who talked about this chchina for example in china people who watch ch titish vv shows
Look down on on who watwatch american tv shows
I'm sorry about that
But those who watch h indie movies
Uh would look down on those who watch like commercial block busters
I think your friend is one of those people
The friend you mentioned earcher ah h the one with a
With a german boyfriend
Who who is very upset
Because her boyfriend likes the song
Yeah Yes
So what do you think about this
I was sure
You know there's a uh a sociologist of a french sociologist of culture called peer bodium uh who who's become very influential um in indescribing
How humans you know we are social creatures
How we differentiate ourselves based on the kind of cultural products
We interact with um
And of course we all i mean you know in most cases
This happens in when we are teenagers and their big revalriies among different groups
When we first sort of try ed forforand independent um so of identity
And
And it and it continues
And so he looked very
He looked at sort of the hierarchies
And he mostly studied french culture
But it and maybe french culture is the most extreme in terms of the hh high hierarchies between high and low
That i think it
It works uh uh uh with some
With some differences
And so absolutely there
There are these curences
And you know i not
I don't stand outside
I grew up with you know classical music
I play the violent uh ii love art house moviture
But you know i'm
I'm certainly uh at heart
Also a cultural stob
But ii tell myself
But you know i that's not all i am
And i also watch blockmasters
You know watch uh k pop
And And it
It's part of a culture
I think i've loosened up over the years
But i think hh maybe in ch culters ii
Much much like like a friend
Uh uh
You know i would really 呃呃呃looked down on people who would like popular culture um uh
But
But yeah
I've come to as you can tell from my interests to
But unfascinated by all kind forms of culture
Especially when they circulate internationally
And i'm interested in how that happens um so um
But yes uh
I mean
I think there are cultural higharkeys um
And i think there are more or less
Complex um
Arworks ks
No
The last chapter ii
Think a part from uh k pop popular culture
You also there's actually one paragraph that personally is very touching into me
You said that the work of these teachers and intermediaries more impimportthan ever today a time
When universities one of the institutions charged with uh preserving culture tend to focus on to technology and other stem subjects uh
And that's definitely true art and humaniare going through you can see a winter season
These days um so what
What do you want
Sorry
What do you want to say to uh young arts and humanity students for instance in your opinion
What is the meaning of uh or significance of arts and humanities
Today
Yeah
It i have lots of thoughts about this decline of the arts and humanity is which you know happened during my lifetime
And it's very painful to watch um
And i think there are lots of reasons
That lots of factors
That contribute to it
I don't think that they are sort of one explanation for the decline
I mean one is that we live enough age of very exciting technological change
And i'm
You know
As you know i'm experimenting with aii think that i don't believe in uh definition of the humanties
That necessarily just rejects that technological change
But it does mean that there is lots of excitement in stem
So and
And also in the
In the
In the science
And
And comcompletely understand if students gravitate towards that field um
I also think that there are some things in the humanities changes
Practices over my lifetime
And some started even before that have not always done ourselves favors
Um
I think the humanities scholarship has become superspecialized only talking to other very small groups of people
So i kind of
Sometimes there is this term public humanities have now used to describe
I suppose the kind of
Of that i'm trying to do reach more people with the kinds of
The kinds of books i write
How i write it with online education
I think that's important
I think that it is true
That the humanities have become very insular
Sometimes in some upbonds and inaccessible um where you know very difficult
Jargon was almost celebrated for being inaccessible
I think that's kind of
Sometimes you know you do need a technical vocabulary
And
And sometimes you need specispecispecization ii don't think that's always wrong
But i think do be forgotten that humanities also connects to people
You know outside universities um
And it's in it sort of a paradox
I think right now at least in the usi don't know how it is elsewhere
I think like the academic humanities are in a terrible stay in the winter as you say
But actually humanities interest outside the univerities is i think as strong as ever
But in that manifests in
You know a lot of literary festivals
That draw large audiences
You know i regularly go to the the gipe or literary festival
Uh uh in in rogistter in india
That draws hundreds of thousands of people come to that literary festival
You know
And uh uh and and in in adcasts in know know like like yours and and so i think that um
I think we need in the humanities
We need to get better
And um you know sometimes there re's a time for specialization
But to also realize that
This is something humanities is a search for meaning
That share among all humans
And and you need to 呃
Sort of be open to that and and learn from that um um and i think that
So that's one thing and i do think and here we go back to the beginning
I think of the conversation
I also do think that at least in the us
They became a form of the humanities that was very identity
Politics space that also created a lot of exclusion based on that you know your chinese
You should study chinese culture
If you study a different culture
That's cultural appropriation or you don't have standing or not part part you lived experiexperience
I think we forgot that culture interactions is also about curiosity
It's also about exploring something that youare not you know that's you know by the the twelve ve old norkorean who starts to study korean because of kpp things
Like that and so think we forgot about that uh and so yeah
So i have lots of things about you know some of these factors are you know not something that we humans can control
But others are
And i'm I
I'm always for trying to change what we can change
Not be too focused on things that we cannot change
And i do think it
Maybe that's the last thing
But you know i also feel like each generation needs to find its own way
So a probably nothing i say is gna be super helpful um
But i do think that there is um a understanding of the humanities
That's very dedefensive
And that is against technology
And for me that that's never been the case
Which is why have been interested in older technologies like paper or print
You know perspective for you know the different technologies that play role in my books
And so i think that's maybe why i've been interested in aaiai can be is a fascinating tool for culture
It It's It
It means the different form of access to texts is possible
My chat boatts are just a small example of that
So ii would
I would maybe also encourage and many people in not not all about some do or many uh to be open and interested in these new technology is not feel too be threatened by them
Because they actually can be um interesting tools for us
Humidcertting so technology and culture
Can and maybe should go hand in hand uh
And also i think the attitude of a curiosity again this becomes i think a quite ite um prevailing theme for us
During the interview a the the attitude of curiosity is very helpful
Ii agree for me
It's It's
You know five six seven years ago
I mean
I thought it always thought curiosity was important
But in the last five six years ago
To my mind
It's really become the single most important thing
Especially when like things are changing very quickly in this
In our age uh
And as you mentioned like even though maybe us and humanities is kind of declining uh in the universities
Or like uh maybe as not such so promising uh as a job it
But it's things about it is always going on like um in a in human society for like a podcasts uh
Like a popular culture and everything um
Then let's maybe talk about still focus a bit on the like university uh
Ii got to know uh young mother actually two days ago uh
When i we are picking uh we were picking our kids at kindle garden
So she was pursuing uh phd degree
And she started um a long time before uh
Uh a long time i go like before she got even got pregnant
And then she got pregnant and had her baby uh
And then she said after that she just feel not not very motivated in in uh partivthink because like you can never spend enough time and energy with your child and partly i think is she said it's not very profitable so um
And she's doing in the eastern culture
A eastern a culture study
Ii think it's quite actually
Quite interesting
Quite meaningful
I want to encourage her
But ii don't know how because i myself
Ii didn't hiiii haven't uh how to continue to pursuing uh pd degree
So do you have some suggestions
Maybe you are some words to say for young scholars
Especially
Those of uh literature in this 啊
New age
Yeah
I mean you know it's complicated
And i don't know the job market exactly in in china
Though what you describe this sounds sexy very similar to in america too
I don't
I don't think everyone needs aphd
You know
I think maybe um there's too much of an emphasis on the phd takes very long time
And especially
And it's a this greree that really is primarily for academic jobs
Which as we have said are declining
And so maybe if you're interested in culture uh um there are many other ways to um to make that part of a career
You know it's
It's so it's interesting
Because when you ask ceos of big companies
They often say that
Oh
I don't just want uh uh students who studied economics
I actually would love students who study history
Or you know other
Other subjects
Um
So they seem to think that um that there that they are skills
You learn that are important their studies that show write out of college
If your huities may and i guess again that's specific to the us
Um would be curious to see how it's different
It's true that humanties may just have more trouble finding jobs
So if you look at the first five years out of college
That's hard
And they aren't much less than that say in engineering
But if you go twenty years out of college
There re's still some gap
But actually it has really narrowed
So that that there re's a senties
That that they are sort of long term skills
Or as you work your up up
And are your way up
Certain technical skills are become less important
And communication skills and the lidical skills become more important
So that there's an argument
They are a trend
There and so i find
But i think the the key thing is for people who study commmanunities on the job market
I think
And i
My gueesthat that that goes
That that ucountrities
Um that you
You need that
You need to try to combine this
You know interest in culture and
And
And arts with
With other things
Whether that's through internships
Ps
Or you know to pick up some
Some of techchical ical lology think you need in a certain tern street
Along the way
And that can
Can be
I think uh a very powerful uh combination
But yes i think the
The focus on
You know i on phd students
I'm myself have to say i spend much less time teaching phd students
Now and much more time undergrds and much more time teaching students
Who mostly focus on other things
But want to get some humaniy's education along the way
And that's where i have to say the american liberal arts college model i think is good
Because it's flexible you can be an engineering student
But you also have to take some humanities 's clasnow so think think is i think i much less focus these days on
You know everyone needs to major in the humanities
Let alone do aphd in the humanities
I much more interested in
How can some more more in the arts and humanities be part of an education of someone who does finance or engineering or or or biology uh for that matter
And
And so i think that's
That would be maybe one suggestion that you know
Don't think of of it as a narrow
You know phd focus that's also great
When people still do that you know
But for most people maybe think of it
Combining it with something
And then i think it can become powerful
Wow
This is actually
You know this is actually very uh comverting and even liberating to me
Although this is not at all by purpose of asking the question
My purpose is asking on behalf of those uh scholars who uh of little trip
But now that you you
You said all this
I feel like
Because i uh i am interested
And i think i will be always interested in little trp
But when i gave up like uh pursuing aphd degree uh before i got um like give birth
I feel like i gave up a very important part of my life
But now your words make me feel like uh
It's
I'm not like it's still a liture is look uh
Look at what you're doing
Look what we are doing
Right now that's that's what more interesting than you are doing
Ahdi wouldn't say it's necessarily interesting
But uh this is not in my plan
But um since it's always my passion
My my interest
So it's still gonna be my life so with mayanother quesm um so okay
So now we are moving towards the end of the interview
And i like ah let's go back to your book of get ah if like twenty first uh story of us were to be repprinted hha retry oruh so so which twenty first century story uh would you add is this a difficult tricky question
Evolates in it's not not ii like quicky and difficult question
This is an possible question
But
But it's also it's of course a question
I'm
I'm in some sense
I raise at the end of the book as you know
Because i talk about this future library project were yeah texts you know that are written
Now are locked away for it started with one hundred years
Now it's uh uh uh you know eighty eight years are supposed
We are now in the
In the count
And
And then so the
The question of the
Or one of the interest of you know um art work or whatever you want to call it
Um it's to think you know what what want a call you
You are very kind
You only asking about fifty years
Um it's
It's It's
It's very hard to know
You know it depends on the society
Fifty years ago
I mean one of the things that's become so clear to me writing this spoook is that we constantly are the first person to say that
But we constantly um return to the past in new ways
Each generation goes back to the past for its own purposes
So you know to find something and that's why cannons and so on and fourth shift
It's true that they are classics
But these classics are i think in part classics
Because they are sort of flexible enough or three dimensionble enough for complex enough
So that each generation with its own concerns and fears and hopes and interests
Find something in them um where re's more flat or more one dimensional
Uh you know art works don't allow for that
And that's why they're often created it st
And you know this in some ways goes back to pop music are much more just just just the for the moment
It answers and need in the moment
Or then it goes away
Because it is only tailored to that moment
And so i think that
So that dynamic it means that iknow it
But iknow if
If one were to attract exrapolate um
And
And i do that in part
Because that artwork fulibrary also has an environmental dimension that i'm sure
Climate change is gona be a big
A big topic
And so probably
Uh i don't know that i imagine fifty years
From now
From
From now
That people might uh think how could they you know they might be interested in our climate change seemed art
Or maybe find it completely inadequate
Or or maybe they find it prophetic
Or
Or i don't know
Let's just say
Because that's our current topic
That maybe climate change will have been solved ed through some technical innovation
And they found this a strange history area
And you know
In the
In the twenty
Twenty ties
That everyone had thought wroute these apocliptic climate change stories
And
And really
Uh it's something completely different
That
That concerns people so i mean
It's It's
So it's
It's really
It's
It's impossible to predict the future
But i think the dynamic is very clear
My mind that that will dictate what they will go back to i siand so um uh so that's this good as i can uh come up to a anssire
And also answering this impossible question
And uh so compleyear of you said like climate change uh kind of narrative and low desire
And also virtual identity um becoming the new normal so which new cultural um paradigms are the generation z creating
You tell me iii don't know i'm not generations
I think i always define myself as the millennial
Yeah
I don't know what there i mean it will you know it remains to be seen
I don't know
I don't know um uh it will be
It will be fascinating to watch ah that's waiting to see what they are creating
Yes and um so let's talk about yourself again so has this all in compassing research changed the way you personally a view the cultural phenomenon in your daily life
In your work
A daily work and life
You mean when i now having written to spoke
And i encounter a cultural practice
Well
It's definitely
It's
It's a tuned me to this reception dynamic i trusts
You know describe i
It's attuned me even more than before to mechanisms of circulation
I ask myself
You know how did how how did this
You know not just a video or art worker whatever is emerge
But how did it make its way to me or add to it
How how does this exchange happen what kind of mediators we're necessary to bring it to me um
And that can mean people can mean technologies usually some combination um h it
You know how did it find me
How did i find it
So and then we also going back to the bubbles and algorithm sinso i'm so far
This is why
Theare so important
Um um uthat's uh uh uh you know and since the
Since i spend most of my time
Right now thinking about ai and what that means i so very a tune to the fact
I think that uh it's a new form of mediator
That that it ai you know large language models can make cultural documents or artifacts or called corpora uh or everything that's on the internet uh you know uh uh available in a very particular way
That that has its constraints and its affortences
It's possibilities and its drawbacks
And so ah yes
I think
I think
I think definitely it um ah it it it atunde me to that dynamic okay so last question
Um you have published three books in the past five years
Five or six years um do you have any um new academic ideas in your mind that can potentially maybe lead to a new book
Yeah ii actually just signed a book contract for a new book
Um um
And it's a book
I'm am now wruh h that i've ve been ininking for about a year and a half
And it has to do with these jackbots
I've created um
And it
And it also goes back to an older book
I wrote about fifteen years ago um and the philosophical dialogue
So this is a book about dialogue
It's right now
It's called the lost art of dialogue
And it's um uh as a history of conversation of dialogue with a particular emphasis on very distinct the form of dialogues
Often philosophical styles of dialogues
About confusion dialogues
A buddhist dialogues
So cratic dialogues
Different kinds on all the way up to modern theraputic dialogues
The kinds of dialogues
We have with a dialogues
And then
Then it that dioogic c history of wral log to look at how we interact with ai
Because i think that's what that's how we interact with this chappot
It's a new form of dialogue
That's emerging
And so i'm trying to use that histook of dialogue to understand what is happening in our interaction with ai
So that's
That's a new book
It sounds like very actually quite uh relevant to kind of related to our podcast
Because it's also the dialogue conversations so true
Really looking forward to the new book
So that's
It that's all my questions
And thank you again
So much for joining us again
You know it's interesting
I'm stuliureright now because of the dialogue ook uh it's a sort of lingist to study dialogue
And that's the question of repair
When something goes wrong
And you have to kind of bridge interruptions or misunderstanings
And so i think uh uh anyway it's very relevant
Also because of that i'm very looking forward to the new book
Indeed uh it's going to be the third book
I read uh apart from the book you 're edited
Thank you for all of your questions
For reading the book
It's been really interesting to talk to you
I hope we stay in touch
以上呢
就是我们的这期播客的全部录制内容
那这次播客呢
我们是 呃
由于一些不可控的因素录了录两次完成啊
也让我深深的感受到了这个普克纳教授的为人谦逊和有耐心啊
那我们这次的聊天呢
从他的书聊到了很多当下的年轻人关心的议题啊
从文化的过去聊到了文化的未来
希望大家像我一样
享受这一次文化的旅程
