Chapter 32 Back to the Future from a Chinese Perspective: A Philosophical Reconstruction of Ideas Gleaned from the Fifteenth ISATT Conference

This chapter draws extensively on the keynote speech delivered by António Nóvoa, Rector of the University of Lisbon, at the fifteenth biennial ISATT conference held in Braga, Portugal, in 2011. Nóvoa’s talking points frame this reflective response. Like António Nóvoa, the author probes the meaning of the phrase, back to the future, as the increasingly global world presses forward in time and ISATT as a professional organization celebrates its thirtieth anniversary. The reflective work links the researcher’s life experiences with those of his daughter and students and weaves in understandings he has gleaned from other sessions and scholars who also helped to shape the contours of his knowing at his first ISATT meeting.