比利時鐘鳴旦教授(Nicolas Standaert)2002年發表的“Methodology in View of Contact between Cultures: The China Case in the Seventeenth Century”一文，是西方學界在中歐文化交流研究頓域中最新的理論分析。本文針對鐘氏運用的幾項理論及其解釋，提出問題，並作更進一步的討論。討論的目的有二:
第一、文化交流的方法論中，諸多概念的演繹，與近來西方學界文化史研究趨向密切相闕，因此，對其分析將有助於瞭解近年來蓬勃發展之中歐文化交流的研究，在過去以及未來如何讓跨文化的研究豐富歷史學的方法論。這個頓域備受關注最有意義的一點，在於它為歷史研究開展了更多元的視野。本文將就人類學的理論如何影響跨文化的研究，交往互動的概念如何取代交流，以及文本性質的重新界定等議題，整合其他文化史理論作分析。
第二、近來中文學界有關中歐文化交流或基督宗教在中國的研究，由於;多中國大陸學者的投入，對中國研究產生相當的刺激，但大陸學界的關注視野，與西方學界的文化史發展有不同的脈絡及結果。如何綜觀這兩方的發展而對未來提出展望，也是本文的目標。雖然本文主要以評析此文化相遇的方法論作出發，但其討論擴及廣義的文化史理論，對西方學界跨文化研究的背景，亦將作部分的專題分析。

Professor Nicolas Standaert's article, entitled “Methodology in View of Contact between Cultures: The China Case in the Seventeenth Century,” published in 2002, is the most recent methodological analysis of the cultural encounters between China and Europe in western scholarship. The present article discusses Standaert's theories and arguments within the broader methodological evolution of “cultural history,” from the perspective of western historiography, and raises some questions for further reflection. There are two purposes for this discussion.
First, various concepts in the theory of cultural contacts, as elaborated by Standaert, are associated with the historiographical tendency to cultural history, and which stirs several issues for cross-cultural studies. Therefore, it is hoped that the present analysis of this article will contribute to the understanding of the significance of cross-cultural studies, which did open up a variety of new perspectives for historical studies. The following issues will be discussed: how anthropology affects cross-cultural studies, how and why the concept of “exchange" has been replaced by one of “interaction,” the re-definition of the nature of “texts and context,” and so on.
Second, in recent decades, Mainland Chinese scholars have been actively engaged in the study of Christianity in China and the cultural encounters between both sides. Their efforts stirred new thinking in Chinese studies. However, their perspectives were developed within a different context from the western one, thus generating different research results. This article is mainly concerned with the perspectives from western research, but hopes to provide clues as to how to bring the research from the Chinese and western scholars together to a prospective historiography. This article also intends to discuss the above methodological issues, covering the theories of cultural history. It is not written as a review essay alone, and ventures to offer a specific analysis of cross-cultural studies in western scholarship, as starting from Standaert's methodology.