Heritage, Memory, and Reconfiguration: Religious Cultural Heritage of the Western Regions and the South China Sea

Dear Colleagues,

The Western Regions (modern-day Central Asia and China’s Xinjiang) and the South China Sea (including coastal South China, Southeast Asian archipelagos, and the broader maritime region) formed two core corridors—the overland Silk Road and the maritime Silk Road—through which ancient China engaged in religious and cultural exchanges with the rest of the world. Over millennia, Buddhism, the Church of the East (Nestorianism), Manichaeism, Islam, Hinduism, and various local folk beliefs spread, intersected, and were localized across these two regions, leaving behind an extraordinarily rich religious cultural heritage: from cave temples, Nestorian monasteries, and Zoroastrian tombs in the Western Regions, to port temples, Sufi shrines, and Chinese folk religion temples in the South China Sea region. This heritage not only provides material testimony to the coexistence of multiple religions but also carries complex religious memories and cultural identities.

However, in the contemporary context of globalization, urbanization, and tourism development, the religious cultural heritage of the Western Regions and the South China Sea faces multiple challenges of preservation, interpretation, and reconfiguration. How is heritage remembered? How is memory selectively reconfigured? How does reconfiguration serve contemporary religious practices, identity formation, or national narratives? These questions urgently require in-depth interpretation from the multidisciplinary perspectives of religious studies, history, art history, and anthropology.

This Special Issue adopts “heritage, memory, and reconfiguration” as its core theoretical framework and focuses on the religious cultural heritage of the Western Regions and the South China Sea. The theme closely aligns with the “Religions and Humanities/Philosophies” section of Religions, particularly echoing the journal’s interest in cross-cutting areas such as religious material culture, religious art, and religion and social memory. By integrating multidisciplinary approaches—including archaeology, religious studies, history, anthropology, art history, and digital humanities—this Special Issue aims to promote both theoretical deepening and empirical accumulation in the study of religious cultural heritage.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• New archaeological discoveries and multidimensional interpretations of religious sites in the Western Regions and the South China Sea;
• Social transmission of religious memory, ritual practices, and intergenerational change;
• Reconfiguration of religious heritage: tourism development, national narratives, and community participation;
• Material religious heritage: cross-regional flows of statues, murals, architecture, ritual objects, and relics;
• Heritage value and digital preservation of religious manuscripts, inscriptions, and epigraphy;
• Application of digital humanities technologies in the recording, display, and dissemination of religious heritage;
• Comparative perspectives on religious heritage of the Western Regions and the South China Sea: land–sea differences and interactions;
• Conflict, disaster, and heritage protection: case studies from the Western Regions and the South China Sea;
• Degradation and deterioration risks of diverse religious heritage and its scientific conservation, restoration, and maintenance.

We expect this Special Issue to (1) systematically review the latest archaeological and research findings on religious cultural heritage in the Western Regions and the South China Sea; (2) promote the application of the “heritage–memory–reconfiguration” analytical framework in religious studies; (3) foster comparative dialogue on religious heritage along the overland and maritime Silk Roads; and (4) provide academic references for the digital preservation, adaptive reuse, and policy-making concerning religious heritage. We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Zhongyue Guan
Dr. Shubin Zhang
Dr. Yun Ji
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• western regions
• South China sea
• religious cultural heritage
• silk roads
• Buddhist heritage
• Nestorian and Islamic heritage
• digital humanities