This intellectual history project, which has been conducted primarily by gathering the individualized oral history of senior scholars who work on China, Chinese civilisation, and Chinese people in different parts of the world, has proceeded with the support of various national and private teams since 2005.

Although attempting a grand scheme of analysis or even deciding if such a scheme is desirable at all is still premature, comparative analyses using interviews have already produced a significant body of thought, which the present and future generations could reflect on. The current publication assembles a number of possibilities provided by scholars who have actually interviewed their senior colleagues as well as by interviewees who recollect their intellectual growth to enrich the project.

Their approaches and concerns vary and overlap with one another in distinct aspects, indicating an evolving agenda of never-ending inspiration. Nevertheless, with the initial problem in mind, which is to discern the mutual constitution of China, China scholars, and China scholarship, the following introduction serves to inductively present the rationales of this publication. The expost notion of post-Chineseness will be its main theme.