Nowoczesność i zmiany kulturowe w dyskursacj Azji Wschodniej

The article discusses main discourses and theoretical approaches towards the phenomenon of modernity in East Asia. The main discourses are identified as: Westernization/ Americanization approach, multiple modernity discourses and the theories of hybridization. The article analyzes main foundations, key premises and functions of the above mentioned discourses within the Asian and non-Asian contexts. Its also traces down advantages, flaws and implications of those discourses with reference to such notions as globalization, West, Asia, culture(s), tradition. The author concludes that rejection of the West/East and tradition/modernity stereotypical divide in the name of a non-essential, multi-casual approach represented by some of the multiple modernity and hybridization theories, may more adequately describe today's Asia and also, possibly, Asia in the future, than the discourses based on such a dualistic divisions.