T'oung Pao

T'oung Pao is a leading international journal of Sinology, founded in 1890 and dedicated to the study of China and East Asia. It has published scholarship by scholars associated with institutions such as the Collège de France, École française d'Extrême-Orient, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of Leiden, University of Cambridge, and Harvard University. The journal has been influential for research on figures like Sima Qian, Confucius, Laozi, Zhu Xi, Wang Yangming, and events such as the Taiping Rebellion, Opium Wars, and the May Fourth Movement.

History

Founded by Gustave Schlegel and J. J. L. Duyvendak colleagues with support from scholars like Édouard Chavannes and Henri Cordier, the journal emerged amid fin-de-siècle debates involving institutions such as the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Société asiatique. Early contributors included Paul Pelliot, Léon Wieger, Émile Senart, and Berthold Laufer, engaging with materials from collections like the British Museum, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the National Palace Museum, and the Sungkyunkwan University archives. Through the twentieth century the periodical reflected scholarly shifts marked by debates involving James Legge, Arthur Waley, Marc Bloch, J. G. F. Hindley, and later figures such as Joseph Needham, Nathan Sivin, John King Fairbank, Denise Bernot, and Paul Rakowski. Editorial succession saw names tied to Leiden University, Université Paris Cité, and the University of Kyoto, with publication migrating between presses including E. J. Brill and national printers associated with the Netherlands and France.

Scope and Focus

The journal addresses philological, historical, archaeological, and literary studies of China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Tibet, and Mongolia, featuring research on texts like the Shiji, Analects, I Ching, Dream of the Red Chamber, and inscriptions from the Oracle bones. Contributors have included specialists on periods framed by labels such as Han dynasty, Tang dynasty, Song dynasty, Yuan dynasty, Ming dynasty, and Qing dynasty. Interdisciplinary dialogues connect work on monuments like the Terracotta Army, sites such as Dunhuang, artifact corpora from the Silk Road, and comparative studies engaging with scholars of Buddhism such as Xuanzang and Huineng, as well as jurists and philologists examining materials related to the Treaty of Nanking and the Sino-Japanese War.

Publication and Editorial Practices

Articles are multilingual and peer-reviewed, with submissions evaluated by editorial boards historically comprising members from Leiden University, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Princeton University, Columbia University, University of Tokyo, Peking University, National Taiwan University, and SOAS University of London. The journal has published long-form critical editions, annotated translations, and excavation reports following standards used by publishers like Brill, Cambridge University Press, and Oxford University Press. Special issues have been mounted in collaboration with centers such as the Needham Research Institute, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, the Institute of East Asian Studies (Berkeley), and the International Dunhuang Project.

Notable Contributions and Impact

The journal has disseminated key discoveries and arguments by researchers including Henri Maspero, Wang Yirong, Luo Zhenyu, Hu Shih, Liang Qichao, Marc Kalinowski, Edwin G. Pulleyblank, Cho-yun Hsu, and Peter K. Bol. It has been the venue for debates on textual provenance affecting editions of the Bamboo Annals, the Zuo Zhuan, and the Dao De Jing, and for publication of epigraphic analyses from sites such as Anyang and Xi'an (Chang'an). The journal influenced historiographical approaches tied to Annales School methodologies, comparative philology linked to Friedrich Hirth, archaeological syntheses resonant with the work of Henri-Paul Francfort, and scientific studies intersecting with scholars like Frederic J. Teggart and W. G. Aston. Its impact extends to museum catalogues at institutions such as the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian Institution through scholar-curator collaboration.

Abstracting and Indexing

T'oung Pao is abstracted and indexed in major bibliographic services and databases used by researchers at JSTOR, Scopus, Web of Science, WorldCat, Google Scholar, and specialized indexes maintained by the Bibliographie de civilisation chinoise and the International Bibliography of Historical Sciences; it is catalogued in national libraries including the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Library of Congress, the National Library of China, and the Koninklijke Bibliotheek. The journal's metadata practices align with standards promoted by organizations such as CrossRef and the Open Archives Initiative.

Category:Sinology journals