Sinotopias

The rise of Sinophone studies has been accompanied by a flood of neologisms. If we take these terminological interventions seriously, they lead us to conceptual questions in and beyond the field of Chinese and Sinophone studies. What are the conceptual, political, and disciplinary stakes of remaining attached to “Sino-” even as we attempt to contest the violence of concepts based on national, ethnic, and cultural identity? By reflecting on the different implications of “Sinophone as method,” this chapter attempts to extend the impact of a Sinophone-studies approach, so that it does not remain circumscribed by pertaining only to phenomena understood as related to the Sinosphere. How can we think the Sinophone beyond the Sinophone—as a method that can be potentially detached from its content—while at the same time keeping the Sinophone in Sinophone actively at work? In order to move beyond its focus on content—Sinophone studies understood as concerned with Sinophone phenomena—and to develop it into a methodology beyond the cultural and linguistic purview of its subjects, this chapter proposes that we rethink its relationship with other disciplines in the humanities and beyond. This implies taking up the challenges that a comparative methodology poses to Sinophone studies, as well as to acknowledge the provocations that Sinophone studies approaches can posit for an ethically responsible way of intercultural work, especially by remaining attentive to scalarity and mediality.