The Cultural Interaction and Ethnic Identity in the Hellenistic Age: Professor Xu Xiaoxu from Renmin University of China was invited to deliver a lecture in WHI

　　September 22nd, 2020 （Sun Simeng reports）- Xu Xiaoxu, professor from the Institute of History of Renmin University of China, presented a lecture on “The Cultural Interaction and Ethnic Identity in the Hellenistic Age” at the invitation of the Institute of World History.

　　Ethnic identity is an important topic in the Hellenistic studies, scholars have used various models and theories to explain the relationship between Greek and non-Greek culture in the Hellenistic age, such as cultural assimilation, segregation, acculturation, antinomy and transfer, etc. as Professor Xu introduced. He put forward a new model of “cultural selection”, and showed typical and detailed cases of ethnic identity of Greeks and non-Greeks in Egypt and Palestine in the Hellenistic age to explore the ethnic identity in the Hellenistic world, with particular reference to the relationship between the construction of ethnic identity and cultural interaction. This model sees culture as a database: in constructing an identity, the subject can call on various cultural resources—whether his own or external—in accordance with the demands of given social settings, and can process these resources as his motivation, desires or claims suggest. The methods of “little history” are suited to demonstrate the complexity of both cultural selection and the construction of identity.

　　Organized by the Department of Western and Southern Asia History, this lecture attracted over ten scholars from various departments of WHI, such as Department of Ancient and Medieval History, of Japanese and Eastern Asian History, and the Editorial Office of the journal World History. They had had discussions on relevant issues, including the interaction between Hellenistic culture and local culture in Asia Minor , Central Asia and Southern Asia, cultural policies implemented by rulers of despotic state, Jewish attitudes towards the Hellenistic culture, as well as Hellenistic vestiges and their inheritance in Palestine.