Summary/Abstract |
This article offers a brief outline of the history of "Chinese classical textual studies" (Zhongguo gudian wenxianxue), analyzes its content and structure, as well as its place and perspectives in modern China. Chinese classical textual studies emerged as a distinct modern academic discipline based on an ancient domestic tradition and under the influence of Western textual criticism of the 19th century. Since the 1920s, over the last hundred years, it has experienced several ups and downs but steadily continues to maintain continuity with the vast philological knowledge of imperial China while also assimilating appropriate new approaches from Western humanities. The most developed areas of wenxianxue are the editing and publication of ancient texts, theoretical research on the foundations of textual studies, the creation and further exploration of subdisciplines, the analysis of research methods and interdisciplinary perspectives, the study of the history of wenxianxue, as well as various specialized problems. Overall, Chinese classical textual studies
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