With issue no. 61, Oriens Extremus enters its second sexagenary cycle. It was founded in 1954 as a “Zeitschrift für Sprache, Kunst und Kultur der Länder des Fernen Ostens”, at a time when there were only a handful of periodicals for Asian studies in Western languages, the scientific community was small, and the field was not very differentiated. Since then, much has changed. The scholarly community has grown, and numerous specialized journals have been founded around the globe. Consequently, Oriens Extremus has also narrowed ist scope.
For the last two decades, there have not been any contributions on Japanese, Indonesian, Thai, or Vietnamese topics, and, alas, no more articles in French or Dutch. Since 2013, a new subtitle – “Kultur, Geschichte, Reflexion in Ostasien” – has signaled a shift from predominantly philological to interdisciplinary, theory-guided research. The editors have since encouraged contributions in the field of conceptual and intellectual history – to which the present issue provides another testimony –, further honing down the journal’s scope and profile.

From the contents (altogether 14 contributions):
Raffaela Rettinger, Revenge of the Inked – Tattooing as Tool of Retribution in Premodern China
C. D. Alison Bailey, The Hidden Knife: The Spectacle of Violence and the Female Filial Avenger
Markus Samuel Haselbeck, The Chinese Avenger Returns: Toward a Conceptual History of Revenge in China
Michael Nylan, The 3Rs: revenge, retribution, and resentment, during the early empires in China
Wen Ruoxuan, Between Duty and Blood: The Dilemma of Revenge in Han Dynasty Legal Conflicts
Zhang Rui, Avenging Women in Early Medieval China: From Piety to Pride, From Earth to the Afterlife
Woohui Park, Calibrating Vengeance: Familial Revenge and Legal Culpability in Late Qing China