The Program of Sinological Training in Poland after World War II - Towards the 'New Sinology'?

This research project takes as a reference the epistemological debates on the study of China and looks at the evolution of understanding of sinology as a discipline of study by Polish academia. It gets insights into the discourses of scholars through the interviews. It focuses on two periods in the history of the post-war Polish sinology: first, 1950s and 1960s and second, on the years after 1990. It asks about the establishment of the boundaries of the discipline and
prioritization of topics.
The preliminary findings from the analysis of the interviews demonstrate that the
epistemological divide on the study of China in the Western intellectual sphere reached a high point in the academic circles in Poland. It is present in the debates of Polish scholars who struggle to establish the meaning of sinology and at the same time, the future of their profession. On the one hand, it has already greatly influenced the program of sinological training at Polish universities. However, while the Western scholars entered this debate in 1960s, the transformation of Polish sinological centres began only in the last decade. Still, the learning of newly introduced subjects on Chinese politics or society, is considered only as an addition to the core subjects, i.e. language learning. On the other, the postulates of the ‘New Sinology’ did not become popular among the researchers of China with the specialist approach of the area studies or other disciplinary approaches.