Although I was invited to Wuhan University, I was unable to add another city to my itinerary in China in spring 2011. However, they have an active group of intercultural communication scholars, and have taken the time to develop a database of some of the major intercultural scholars across China. Unfortunately for those of us who don’t read Chinese, only the basic description of the establishment of the organization at Wuhan is in English. I’m quoting from the organizational description below:
“Being interested in cultural studies, we stepped into the field of intercultural communication research in 1990s, when Professors Shan Bo, Shi Yinbin, Wang Handong, and Qin Zhixi formed a group and established the research orientation of comparative journalism and intercultural studies. In 2002 Intercultural Studies became one of the six research orientations in the application by School of Journalism and Communication at Wuhan University for the right to award doctoral degree in first rank discipline, which got official approval in 2003. The preparations for a doctoral program for intercultural communication soon followed, which was officially established in 2004, being the only one of its kind under Journalism and Communication as first rank discipline. At the same time Research Center for Intercultural Communication was founded at the university level, the director of which is Professor Shan Bo, who collaborated with Université Michel de Montaigne – Bordeaux 3 of France and inaugurated consecutive “International Conference on Intercultural Communication”, which is held annually.”
For the rest of the information provided in English, see this page. For the main page, with links to descriptions of different scholars in Chinese, see this page.
Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz
Director, Center for Intercultural Dialogue
UPDATE as of June 9, 2011: Thanks to Shan Bo for adding me to the database of scholars they describe (in English) – see here.