Since its foundation in 1954, Oriens Extremus has stood in an unbroken tradition for outstanding research on East Asian cultural and intellectual history. In 2013, the journal was given a new profile aimed at opening up new perspectives in East Asian studies and promoting exchange with scholars from neighbouring disciplines. The programme of Oriens Extremus is summarised in the new subtitle: Culture, History, Reflection in East Asia. Oriens Extremus continues to publish essays on the cultural and intellectual history of China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam from antiquity to the present - but without simply stringing together heterogeneous contributions on different topics. Instead, articles are published in English, French and German that focus on a common theme from different perspectives. In particular, broad space is given to works on the history of concepts: Essays that ask less about what the East Asian world is or was like than about how it was described and how it was reflected upon.
