Vol. 5 No. 1 (2026): Studies of Chinese Philosophy in the Contemporary World
The academia of Asian studies in Spanish: The need for ongoing discussion
The International Journal of Asian Studies (RIEA) continues its work of exploring and promoting a rigorous and specialized academic space concerning Asian cultures. For decades, the University of Costa Rica, through several academic departments and Faculties, has organized conferences, symposiums, and congresses on these topics, as well as inviting foreign scholars who have enriched the university's academic work in this regard. For this reason, since its inception, RIEA has sought to be a platform par excellence for contributing to these academic endeavors.
Precisely, in order to continue along this path, the following issue offers a dossier that brings together some of the papers presented at the II Congreso Internacional de la Red Iberoamericana de Filosofía China (RIFCH), entitled “La filosofía china y sus aportaciones a las Humanidades”, which was held on August 27th and 28th, 2025, and sponsored by the Confucius Institute at the University of Costa Rica. This Congress gathered, in a hybrid format, various specialists from countries such as Peru, Costa Rica, Italy, the United States, and Spain, among others. The dossier has a short introduction that briefly details the content of the articles it contains.
Similarly, the peer-review section includes an article on distance learning of Chinese during the pandemic, as well as the book review section, which is always well stocked with recently published books on Asian societies, in this case on Chinese cultures, as a complement to the dossier on Chinese philosophy mentioned above.
We would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate Carlos Calderón Herrera, from the University of Costa Rica, who won the Best Theoretical-Aesthetic Research Award from the Asociación Internacional de Críticos de Arte (AICA) for his article “Voces de una identidad olvidada. Reflexiones en torno al trabajo visual de artistas costarricenses de origen chino”, published in RIEA in Vol. 4(2): 248-288 (July–December 2025). The event at which Calderón Herrera received the award took place on February 18th, 2026, at the National Library in San José, Costa Rica.
Esteban Sánchez Solano
Universidad de Costa Rica,
San José, Costa Rica
