Open Access Journal: Sino-Platonic Papers

Sino-Platonic Papers is an occasional series edited by Victor H. Mair of the University of Pennsylvania's Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations. The purpose of the series is to make available to specialists and the interested public the results of research that, because of its unconventional or controversial nature, might otherwise go unpublished.

Since issue no. 171 (June 2006), Sino-Platonic Papers has been published electronically on the Web at no cost to readers, with older back issues also being released periodically for free in e-editions. Paper copies of issues nos. 1–170 will continue to be available for purchase until our stock runs out, at which point those issues too will be available for free on the Web.

What's Recent

April 2014

• brand-new SPP (no. 246): On the Origins of the Alphabet: New Evidence, by Brian R. Pellar

March 2014

• brand-new SPP (no. 245): Dogs and Herders: Mythical Kinship, Spiritual Analogy, and Sociality in Rural Mongolia, by Gaby Bamana

January 2014

• brand-new SPP (no. 244): Rhetoric of the Loom: Discursive Weaving Women in Chinese and Greek Traditions, by Norman Harry Rothschild

December 2013

• brand-new SPP (no. 243): From Imperial Metaphor to Rebellious Deities: The History and Modern State of Western Studies of Chinese Popular Religion, by Rostislav Berezkin

October 2013

• brand-new SPP (no. 242): China and the Ancient Mediterranean World: A Survey of Ancient Chinese Sources, by YU Taishan
• brand-new SPP (no. 241): On the Nature of the Vedic Gods, by Catalin Anghelina

September 2013

• brand-new SPP (no. 240): Sacred Display: New Findings, by Miriam Robbins Dexter and Victor H. Mair
• brand-new SPP (no. 239): The Expansion of the Indo-European Languages: An Indo-Europeanist’s Evolving View, by Eric P. Hamp, with annotation and comments by Douglas Q. Adams

July 2013

• rerelease of SPP 131: A History of the Relationship between the Western and Eastern Han, Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern Dynasties and the Western Regions, by Yu Taishan
• brand-new SPP (no. 238): Was There a Xià Dynasty?, by Victor H. Mair, with contributions by E. Bruce Brooks

April 2013

• brand-new SPP (no. 237): Kungang (昆岗): The Making of an Imaginary Archaeological Culture, by Victor H. Mair and Cheng Fangyi
• brand-new SPP (no. 236): Examining the Connection Between Ancient China and Borneo Through Santubong Archaeological Sites, by Wan Kong Ann

March 2013

• brand-new SPP (no. 235): The Evolution of the Concept of De德 in Early China, by Scott A. Barnwell
• brand-new SPP (no. 234): 會稽: Guaiji? Guiji? Huiji? Kuaiji? Some Remarks on an Ancient Chinese Place-Name, by James M. Hargett
• brand-new SPP (no. 233): China and the New Cosmopolitanism, by Johan Elverskog

January 2013

• rerelease of SPP 108:Understanding Di and Tian: Deity and Heaven From Shang to Tang, by Ruth H. Chang
• rerelease of SPP 112:Notes on the Anau Inscription, by Victor H. Mair
• rerelease of SPP 118:Evidence for the Indo-European Origin of Two Ancient Chinese Deities, by Justine T. Snow
• rerelease of SPP 119:“Hu” Non-Chinese as They Appear in the Materials from the Astana Graveyard at Turfan, by WU Zhen
• rerelease of SPP 120:Female-Gendered Myth in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, by Anne Birrell
• rerelease of SPP 124:The Context of the Anau Seal, by Fredrik T. Hiebert, and Remarks on the Anau and Niyä Seals, by John Colarusso
• rerelease of SPP 168:Aspects of Assimilation: the Funerary Practices and Furnishings of Central Asians in China, by Judith A. Lerner

• rerelease of SPP 82: A Fragment of a pien-wen(?) Related to the Cycle “On Buddha’s Life”, by I. S. Gurevich
• rerelease of SPP 88: Siddham in China and Japan, by Saroj Kumar Chaudhuri
• rerelease of SPP 97: A Discussion of Sino-Western Cultural Contacts and Exchange in the Second Millennium B.C. Based on Recent Archaeological Discoveries, by LI Shuicheng
• rerelease of SPP 109: In Hell the One without Sin is Lord, by Conán Dean Carey
• rerelease of SPP 146: The -yu Ending in Xiongnu, Xianbei, and Gaoju Onomastica, by Hoong Teik Toh
• rerelease of SPP 147: Chinese Qiong ~ Tibetan Khyung; Taoism ~ Bonpo — Some Questions Related to Early Ethno-Religious History in Sichuan, by Hoong Teik Toh
• rerelease of SPP 149: A Sacred Trinity: God, Mountain, and Bird: Cultic Practices of the Bronze Age Chengdu Plain, by Kimberly S. Te Winkle
• rerelease of SPP 154: Mythologie sino-européenne, by Serge Papillon

• rerelease of SPP 77: The Origin and Nature of the “Nineteen Old Poems”, by Daniel Hsieh
• rerelease of SPP 99: Wheeled Vehicles in the Chinese Bronze Age (c. 2000–741 BC), by Anthony Barbieri-Low
• rerelease of SPP 106: A Hypothesis about the Sources of the Sai Tribes, by Yu Taishan
• rerelease of SPP 127: The Getes, by Sundeep S. Jhutti
• rerelease of SPP 148: Le gréco-bouddhisme et l’art du poing en Chine, by Lucas Christopoulos
• rerelease of SPP 151: The Genealogy of Dictionaries: Producers, Literary Audience, and the Circulation of English Texts in the Treaty Port of Shanghai, by Jane Jia SI
• rerelease of SPP 152: The Dance of Qian and Kun in the Zhouyi, by Denis Mair
• rerelease of SPP 155: Janus-Like Concepts in the Li and Kun Trigrams, by Denis Mair
• rerelease of SPP 156: Manichean Gnosis and Creation, by Abolqasem Esmailpour
• rerelease of SPP 157: Paradoxical Coexistence of Prognostication and Warfare, by Ralph D. Sawyer
• rerelease of SPP 158: Writings on Warfare Found in Ancient Chinese Tombs, by Mark Edward Lewis
• rerelease of SPP 159: The Zuozhuan Account of the Death of King Zhao of Chu and Its Sources, by Jens Østergaard Petersen
• rerelease of SPP 160: Literary Evidence for the Identification of Some Common Scenes in Han Funerary Art, by Matteo Compareti
• rerelease of SPP 167: Old Chinese ‘帝*tees’ and Proto-Indo-European ‘*deus’: Similarity in Religious Ideas and a Common Source in Linguistics, by ZHOU Jixu
• rerelease of SPP 78: Practical Mongolian Sentences (with English Translation), by Narsu and Kevin Stuart
• rerelease of SPP 93: The Key to the Chronology of the Three Dynasties: The “Modern Text” Bamboo Annals, by David S. Nivison
• rerelease of SPP 95: A Medieval, Central Asian Buddhist Theme in a Late Ming Taoist Tale by Feng Meng-lung, by Victor H. Mair
• rerelease of SPP 110: Shaykh 'Âlam: the Emperor of Early Sixteenth-Century China, by Toh Hoong Teik
• rerelease of SPP 111: The Need for a New Era, by Victor H. Mair
• rerelease of SPP 128: On Proto-Shang, by Yinpo Tschang
• rerelease of SPP 130: Mayan: A Sino-Tibetan Language? A Comparative Study, by Bede Fahey

December 2012

• brand-new SPP (no. 232): Gendering Other: The Representation of Foreigners in Yesou puyan, by Huili Zheng
• brand-new SPP (no. 231): Encounter with a Tiger Traveling West, by Heleanor Feltham
• rerelease of SPP 129: Linguistic Evidence for Cultural Exchange in Prehistoric Western Central Asia, by Michael Witzel
• brand-new SPP (no. 230): Hellenes and Romans in Ancient China (240 BC – 1398 AD), by Lucas Christopoulos

For previous announcements, see the news archive.