Open research questions in Chinese history and philosophy
97 unresolved questions extracted from the limitations and future-work sections of 7,701 Chinese history and philosophy papers in our library. Each links back to the study that raised it.
What the literature leaves open
Future research might examine whether cultural relic registration correlates with official career advancement, analyse artefact repa- triation as an input into domestic narratives, and conduct visitor ethnographies to see how museu- misation reshapes local memories. The same selective logic shapes the China National Museum of Women and Children, opened in 2010, whose exhibits trace women’s contributions from antiquity to the present through MADE IN CHINA / 2, 2025CHINA COLUMNS (Connerton 1989), and it remains uncertain which ghosts from the past will one day return to haunt the leaders of the future.
Excavating a History Already Found: Archaeology and the Politics of the Past in the People’s Republic of China · 2026 · DOIYet in current scholarship, there is no consensus as to how to make sense of its authors’ argument that the Zhouyi provides a mantic method—particularly selecting hexagrams based on a counting of the yarrow stalks—to understand the working of the natural system and comprehend the intricacies of a developing event.
This paper will take philosophical Taoism and religious Taoism as a cultural whole and conduct a comprehensive, in-depth study of Taoist leisure, by paying more attention to its religious dimension, which is very esoteric, characteristic, and more of the essence of Taoism but rarely investigated before.
Through field investigation, it is found that there are eight existing theaters in the Taihang Mountain area of North Henan Province; among which three ones are newly discovered that have not been documented by the academic circle before, as well as several traditional Chinese opera steles and wall inscriptions.
A Study on the Ancient theater of official house in The Taihang mountain area of North Henan Province in China · 2023 · DOIThis article examines several under-explored aspects of Sino-Iranian relations in the 1970s, the process of Sino-Iranian rapprochement, and China's reaction to the 1979 revolution.
China and the Iranian Revolution: New Perspectives on Sino-Iranian Relations, 1965–1979 · 2022 · DOIThis review uses demographically sizeable, culturally significant, yet understudied and undertheorized Chinese fathers as an example to reveal the limitations of applying WEIRD‐centric perspectives when studying fathering and fatherhood.
Beyond W.E.I.R.D. (Western, educated, industrial, rich, democratic)‐centric theories and perspectives: masculinity and fathering in Chinese societies · 2021 · DOIIt is suggested that the experience of the female character in the novel, as well as in the contemporary Chinese society, should be investigated allegorically, and it reveals a universal issue about the complexity of human nature, for in a certain sense, one may start aiming to be Mother Theresa, but end in finding himself or herself merely a devoted clownlike servant of the state will.
The reception of Judaism in contemporary China is not only an under-investigated topic endowed with a great potential to reveal to what extent the Chinese ordinary man as well as the academic succeed to understand Western thought and to differentiate among the varied cultural traditions generally subsumed by them under the notion Western , but it also shows that the constructivist approaches preserve their validity in non-European contexts as well.
Constructed Realities in the Study of Religion? Considerations on the Margin of Judaism's Reception in Present-Day China · 2017Here, Tsunoda adopts a nontraditional [End Page 274] approach, arguing that the place of Dōgen’s philosophy within the history of Buddhism should be examined through looking into Dōgen’s own understanding of the evolution of the Dharma — and his place within it.
Dōgen Zenji no shisō-teki kenkyū 道元禅師の思想的研究 (Studies in Dōgen Zenji’s thought) by Tsunoda Tairyū 角田泰隆 · 2017 · DOIHu Jinchu enumerates a list of 25 such names, however Slovak sinologist Stanislav Vavrovský proves, that only some of them may actually mean giant panda, although the unambiguous and decisive arguments are lacking.
This article, however, argues that while Weber has made his analyses based on very limited information, his arguments about the nature of Chinese cities and Chinese religions, and his explanation of China’s impossibility to achieve industrial capitalism before the advent of Western imperialism, are largely correct.
Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908) is one of the most significant and controversial political figures in modern Chinese history, yet her comprehensive engagement with court art, a symbolic realm of sovereignty in China, remains understudied and is therefore deserving of close analysis.
A Palace of Her Own: Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908) and the Reconstruction of the Wanchun Yuan · 2012 · DOIWhile there is no consensus that cultural nationalism has developed into a formidable force in China, few would deny that it has been on the rise since June 4, 1989, and that it is a cultural-political movement with no parallel in the People’s Republic, except perhaps for the period following May 4, 1919.
In other words, I investigate the historical conditions that made this particular arbitrary claim sensible, or even necessary, at the time, focusing on the reconfiguration of an increasingly transregional institutional framework of scholarship, the relationship between modern Chinese scholarship and nationalist sentiment, and the often under-explored dimension of personal relationships.
, Rubin & Honorton, 1971, 1972; Thalbourne, 1994; Thalbourne, Delin, Barlow, & Steen, 1992-1993), and these studies reported mixed results (for a review, see Storm & Thalbourne, 2001).
A Parapsychological Investigation of the I Ching: The Relationship between PSI, Intuition, and Time Perspective (1) · 20061 The prominent place economic issues hold in Shanghai art remains to be acknowledged: in a city that was commercial to the core, art world business practices played a crucial role in shaping the identity of the artist, transforming his clientele, his relationship to that clientele and to the public at [End Page 187] large.
The Profits of Philanthropy: Relief Aid, Shenbao, and the Art World in Later Nineteenth-Century Shanghai · 2004 · DOI2 (December 1993): 78-95 78 Ming-Qing Studies in Japan: 199279 who afterward took up the study of "local society" were insufficiently conscious of the limitations built into Mori's proposal, and became inclined to analysis of social relations that totally excluded theories of class and control.
4 The Veritable Records (Shih-lu) and contemporary accounts are also used to complement the archival materials especially for the period after 1795, when official reports on the Kuo-lu are relatively scarce in the Taipei archives.
A "basic structure" of the chaesu kut is set forth in chapter 10 for the sake of a neat structural analysis, but it differs from any ofthe structures enumerated in chapter 2, where we are also told that the chaesu kut has no standard structure.
A "basic structure" of the chaesu kut is set forth in chapter 10 for the sake of a neat structural analysis, but it differs from any ofthe structures enumerated in chapter 2, where we are also told that the chaesu kut has no standard structure.
This brief sketch of salvation in the Chinese revolutionary view leaves open a number of questions on which Christians may look forward to future dialogue with followers of Chairman Mao. For example, what is the locus of creativity in the world ? Does it reside with the masses ? What is the role of the non-conforming creative individual ? Is this an unnecessary Western ideal? Can the individual hold out against the majority when he feels he is right ? What is the relationship of love and hatred in social struggle ? Why are enemies enemies ? Why do oppressors oppress ? The Christian may ask if a clear line of distinction can be drawn between the people and the enemy. Even the followers of Mao say that a struggle is necessary against the enemy in the mind, against selfish tendencies. Is not opression then, a common temptation for all persons ? The follower of Mao would reply that the statement that all men are tempted to selfish and oppressive acts 2 1 SCMP, No. 4983, September 27, 1971, p. 3. 2” SCMP, No. 4479, August 20, 1969, p. 12. SALVATION IN THE CHINESE REVOLUTION 341 only serves to protect the oppressor. Such a statement would mean that the oppressor is just like everyone else. Saying this weakens the determi- nation of the oppressed people to struggle against oppressors. Therefore such a statement and such a view functions as an opiate. The problem is to maintain a spirit of struggle against oppressors while at the same time recognizing one’s own shortcomings. Another important area of future dialogue may be the questing of what the goal of salvation is. Overcoming exploitation is only a negative goal. What are the new man and new society to be like ? What is there about the future that makes it worth struggling for? What does liberation mean? What does it mean to have power over one’s life? How is personal liberation related to social liberation ? The Chinese revolution has affirmed many things about man and society. Important new experimentation has taken place. A vast country has been remade and strengthened through a process of revolutionary change. Revolutionary China does not have all the answers, nor even all the ques- tions. In struggling to deal with the meaning of salvation today, however, the exciting Chinese experience cannot be ignored.
” 116 But such a thorough examination is well beyond the scope of this paper. , and the manifest inferiority of his political and industrial capabilities make it still an open question whether it should be encouraged or discouraged,” Bennett explained.
com at University College London on May 29, 2016 A N C I E N T C H I N E S E P H I L O S O P H Y 29 understood its name is brought forward; when its name is not understood it is illustrated ; when the illustration is not understood it is explained; when the explanation is not understood dialectic comes into use.
Ritual, Language, Power: An Essay On The Apparent Political Meanings Of Ancient Chinese Philosophy · 1964 · DOIWhile direct evidence is limited, the structural alignment between fraternal traditions and the festival’s early form suggests these innovations took root because they drew on familiar cosmologies and symbols—especially among tin miners.
Stars, Kings, Pirates: The Nine Emperor Gods Festival and the Making of a Diasporic Religious Ecology in Postcolonial Southeast Asia · 2026 · DOIThroughout nearly a year of my fieldwork, I observed that worship services themed around traditional Chinese festivals were limited to these two occasions.
Reimagining Blessings and Homecoming: The Intersection of Chinese Festival Traditions and Christian Worship Rituals in a Chinese Church in Canada · 2026 · DOI
Most-cited papers in Chinese history and philosophy
- Education policy borrowing and cultural scripts for teaching in China · Comparative Education · 2014 · 101 citations
- Toward a Networks and Boundaries Approach to Early Complex Polities · Current Anthropology · 2009 · 78 citations
- Resurgence of Confucian education in contemporary China: Parental involvement, moral anxiety, and the pedagogy of memorisation · Journal of Moral Education · 2022 · 60 citations
- The insider–outsider role of a Chinese researcher doing fieldwork in China: The implications of cultural context · Qualitative Social Work · 2014 · 45 citations
- ‘Thinking through the world’: a <i>tianxia</i> heuristic for higher education · Globalisation Societies and Education · 2022 · 34 citations
- The culturalisation of politics in contemporary Chinese citizenship education · Comparative Education · 2023 · 33 citations
- Size and Duration of Empires: Growth-Decline Curves, 600 B.C. to 600 A.D. · Social Science History · 1979 · 31 citations
- Knowledge Diffusion and Intellectual Change: When Chinese Literati Met European Jesuits · The Journal of Economic History · 2021 · 29 citations
- The Analysis of Chinese Rural Society: Fei Xiaotong Revisited · Modern China · 2020 · 29 citations
- Patriotism in moral education: Toward a rational approach in China · Journal of Moral Education · 2022 · 29 citations
Most recent work
- Between preserving Pakistani ‘traditions’ and creative adaptation Barelvi brotherhood and heritagisation of Sa’d ibn Abi Waqqas mausoleum in Guangzhou · Religion · 2026
- Must Great Power Politics Necessarily Be Tragic? · Asian Studies · 2026
- Subduing Others Through Virtue Constitutes Kingship": The Ethical Implications of Xunzi's Doctrine of the Gentleman · Journal of Social Science Humanities and Literature · 2026
- Networks vs. the State or “All Under Heaven”?: Chinese Migrants, Technological Circulation, and the Early Modern Qing Empire · Itinerario · 2026
- A Murder in Yunnan: The Unsolved Killing of a British Diplomat on China’s Southwestern Frontier · Asian Affairs · 2026
- The Institutional Skeleton and the Flexible Interface: Why Chinese Governance Rests on Legalism, Not Confucianism · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2026
- Comparative Study of a Qianlong Period Chinese Porcelain Vase from a Private Collection and a Comparable Example in the Freer Gallery of Art · Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2026
- 美国1935 年《社会保障法》的性别差异 · Ren wen she hui fa zhan. · 2026
- Localizing Sagehood: Cultural Memory of Yao, Shun, and Yu in Shanxi · Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae · 2026
- Interpreting literalised rituals as a genre · Journal of Historical Pragmatics · 2026
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