philosophy of art and culture, aesthetics, cross-cultural philosophy
relational phenomenology, philosophical hermeneutics
French Personalism, Kyoto School
The research has consistently centered on the fundamental of relation in cultural formations. The point of departure was twentieth century European interpretive philosophies of art and culture, drawing on figures such as Dufrenne, Merleau-Ponty, Lyotard, and Deleuze. The project evolved into a dialogical study of aspects of Western relational phenomenologies (Marcel, French Personalism) and the philosophies of the Kyoto School (Nishida, aesthetics, ethics) to better understand meaning formation in cultural experience. More recently, the focus has shifted to cross-cultural avenues for comprehending cultural formations within the context of globalisation, specifically through projects on the art and ethics of dialogue, East-Asian environmental philosophy and aesthetics, and cultural mesology.