When the second plane strikes the Second International Tower of New York, we are there. When the American troops march into Iraq, we see personally a land in real war. When the glazier falls in the far South Pole, we all feel the trebling under our feet. When the long line of refugees wanders through the border of Somalia, when a civilian is beaten to death by the opposing mob, we all witness them personally. They are happening to our neighbor at our door steps. When the housing market collapses; when the stock dips deep; when the Earth grows warm; when the ozone hole grows larger and larger, when we experience them instantly and directly. We could talk simultaneously with so many different people known or not on different parts of the world about our concerns, our hopes, our opinions our happiness and pain and so on. We are no doubt living in a global village. Distance is no distance at all. We could travel in seconds to the farthest end of the world and venture deeply into the rich and colorful living world of different cultures, religions, thoughts, histories, values of the most diverse ethnic groups unknown to us. Our living space seems to be compressed into a thin slice of time without any interval to cushion us off. There seems nothing that is of no concern to us. There seems no place to hide to take our life at pleasure. Globalization is not a choice. It happened and it is still happening. After industrialization, modernization, computerization, we have to face the reality of globalization. Life is upgrading or downgrading? Life is being diversified or monotonies? Inter-enlightening or inter-exploiting? Should it be embraced or rejected? Tell us—you, scholars of humanities.


Please send submissions by post or email to JH@ncu.edu.tw, no later than May 30, 2009.