Scenery On The Edge:Chinese Recorder And Knowledge Communication Of Missionary Sinology

The Chinese Recorder (CR,1867-1941), a very influential periodical founded by the Christian missionaries, contains numerous articles on Chinese culture and history, which are of great value to Sinology research. CR has been used as resources by scholars seeking to know more about missions in China in the nineteenth and twentieth century for a long time. But there has not been a comprehensive research on CR from historical and Sinological perspectives. My proposed doctoral research would primarily concentrate on the dissemination and development of missionary Sinology by examining CR and other typical periodicals in history of Sinology. The dissertation endeavors to measure the value and explore the tradition of missionary Sinology in a proper and new way.For the lack of a general study of CR, the research reconstruct a complete history of CR, and an overall but brief study of Sinology periodicals’network. It will look into major subjects in CR, namely area study, custom, history, language, literature, philosophy and religion by analysis of historical data. It will offer a new view to the research by means of typical Sinology Index comparison and original text studies:Firstly, take Missionary Sinology as a part of the global network for knowledge communication, to conduct a deep survey of CR by communication and history studies; Secondly, with a quantitative comparison of subject and articles in CR, to conduct a comprehensive consideration of Missionary Sinology by periodical and Index research; Thirdly, through culture study and discourse study method, conduct a dynamic analysis to the transition of Missionary Sinology tradition which from Oriental study to Chinese studies via Sinology, a new discipline generated by Sino-west academic exchange.The research centered missionary Sinology, based on Sinology knowledge communication, traced history missionary Sinology and valued its position and contribution in the progress of Sinology. In a view of periodical Study of CR, through a chain of communication channels, communication content, communication subject and communication characteristics, a comprehensive analysis of missionary Sinology will be given in 4 Chapters besides the preface and epilogue:Ch.1 for Network of Communication; Focus on geopolitical transmission state of Sinology knowledge, draw an outline of network space of knowledge communication western Sinology, make clear the position of the missionary Sinology journal. A general description of the background of the emergence of CR and its business will be given. Meanwhile, the relation between missionaries and early western periodical in china will be discussed.Ch.2 for Subject of Communication; Focus on the content and knowledge of Sinology in CR, classify the knowledge of missionary Sinology knowledge and its main subject. Introduce the columns and Sinology resources of the journal especially with the data analysis of the articles and subjects from typical Sinology Index. Therefore an index classification method will be used to arrange the subject and study the relation between CR and western Sinology.Ch.3 for Communicator of Communication; Focus on the compiling group of CR and the trend of Sinology Knowledge in the Journal. Trace the clues of Editors and Authors of CR, Analysis the proportion of the Sinology research and the influence of Sinology study content and direction in different period and different Author group, to summaries the Transition situation of Missionaries in Sinology history.Ch.4 for Discourse of Communication; Focus on the Sinology text characteristic and knowledge traditional of Missionary Sinology. Pay attention to the power structure in the Communication text of CR to solve the ideological issues. According to the certain case studies, conduct a text and discourse analysis to draw a tradition outline in Missionary Sinology, which contains Regional-Travel tradition, Mission Enlightenment tradition and Religion-Figurism tradition, and by this means the debate of Orientalism and Sinologism will also be discussed in the section to reach a proper understanding of Missionary Sinology.It holds an argument that Missionary Sinology inherits the tradition of the Jesuits, but come to the edge of Sinology inevitably in history. Therefore missionary works in Sinology such as articles published in CR were between narrative and scholarly research, between Orientalism and Sinologism, between Chinese and western cross-culture communication, the dissertation will revalue missionary Sinology as seen through CR and draw a conclusion to the whole research.