From New Materials and New Questions to a New Methodology

Since the 1980s, research on Sinographic literature has made significant strides. From the standpoint of academic history, this research has undergone three broad stages, which are represented respectively by new materials, new questions, and new methods. These have been the overall trends, which necessarily overlap each other. Research on Sinographic literature has diverged from a focus on new material toward the refinement of new questions and the exploration of new methodologies. One such exploratory approach is “the Sinosphere as methodology,” which addresses the shortcomings of four previous research models and seeks to put this new methodological concept into practice, to contain the expansionist impulses of cultural imperialism, and to prise apart nationalist parochialism.