Call for Papers - Historiography of Science in China

2026-06-19

Call for Papers

Historiography of Science in China

Transversal: International Journal for the Historiography of Science will receive proposals for articles that seek to reflect on the Historiography of Science in China for the June issue of 2027.

In the past two centuries, China witnessed first-hand the radical restructuring of the world as a result of the Industrial Revolution. Accompanying such a restructuring was a dominance of the world view undergirded by Western sciences among China’s intellectual elites during the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Indeed, before the middle of the 19^th century, at least some Chinese literati in the late Ming and early Qing periods were already aware of the superiority of Western sciences (natural philosophy). Starting from the late 19^th century, applying scientific knowledge to resolve the issues and tensions within the broader landscape of society, institutions, culture, and thought became the automatic response from the mainstream Chinese scholars whose existential anxiety concerning the future of China was entangled with the desire for a science-driven modernisation. After the Opening and Reform in the late 20^th century, Chinese intellectual elites have turned to the West again for advanced science and technology. As such, what China stood for traditionally before the arrival of the Industrial Revolution was largely sidelined by a reconfiguration of knowledge that orientated the Chinese understanding toward the sciences — a Copernican Revolution forcing the eastern learning into an active negotiation with Western frameworks.

It is within this backdrop that this special issue proves to be timely. Put simply, we seek to assemble the best of critiques and contemplations that reflect upon the scholarship of Chinese historiography of science within the framework of socio-technical relationships. How have the Chinese intellectuals viewed Western sciences? What have been the different responses? Have the sciences been viewed as compatible with the Chinese intellectual tradition? How have the Chinese scholars written the history of the sciences, either Western or Chinese? What have been the historiographical, methodological, and philosophical responses? In this special issue, we aim to provocatively fulfil our duty as historiographers—interrogating whether China’s drive to modernise justifies an unconditional surrender of the history of science and technology, and the general humanities, to scientific hegemony.

Topics to be addressed include, but are not limited to

Philosophical foundations of the history of science and technology in China;
Historiography of Chinese sciences;
Methodological reflections on the Chinese historiography of science and technology.

Submission Guidelines:

To be considered for the June issue of 2027, submissions must be received by 31 December 2026, via the journal webpage.
Papers should be prepared in accordance with the Journal’s Guidelines for authors and formatted for double-anonymised review. In particular, manuscripts should be no more than 10,000 words, including notes, keys, pictures, tables, illustrations, and bibliographic references. Use a word count for the whole article and take into account that each image, table, or diagram will correspond to 300 words. It is also required that each manuscript has a title, an abstract (maximally 150 words), and five keywords.

https://periodicos.ufmg.br/index.php/transversal/about/submissions