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The article analyzes the work of Ieong Man Pan (楊文彬) through the tension between memory and nostalgia, proposing that “the future” presented by the artist materializes as an ever-transforming archive of Macau’s urban present. Drawing from a diagnosis of the rapid metamorphoses of cities—marked by fragmentary urbanization, the indiscriminate replacement of historical fabrics, and the proliferation of infrastructures—the text argues that nostalgia does not operate as a return to the past but as a critical device capable of revealing how the contemporary “authenticity” of Macau is precisely produced by its artificiality. Methodologically, the approach combines an interpretive reading of the artist’s work with theoretical frameworks on urban development, national imaginaries, and regimes of representation (including the notion that thinking the future equates to capturing the present). Interpretations of works such as *Unfoldable Map* articulate photographs, cartographies, and figurative images as mechanisms that reconstruct trajectories, losses, and continuities. The conclusion is that, by transforming the remnants, gaps, and mismatches of urban space into visual knowledge, Ieong Man Pan turns “the coming future” into a reconfiguration of what has already been lost, making memory a tool for interrogating urban directions and values.

This article critiques the linear application of Benedict Anderson’s argument on “print capitalism” to the case of East Asia, arguing that in the early twentieth century, the transfer of knowledge mediated by typographic technology cannot be explained as a mere technical advance imported from the European “center” to the “periphery.” Instead, the text proposes understanding mechanized printing as a cultural and political process of negotiation, in which foreign technologies were reconfigured by local traditions of editorial culture and by preexisting reader market dynamics. Mobilizing historiographical discussions on the Chinese adaptation of Western printing (in dialogue with Christopher Reed’s analysis) and the Sino-Japanese regional circulation during the “golden decade” (1898–1912), the article argues that print modernity in Asia was woven by transnational networks of knowledge circulation, articulated by interconnected agents, cities, and institutions. It concludes that typographic technology functioned as the infrastructure of a “cultural nexus of power”: while enabling new forms of intellectual circulation and standardization, it also served to sustain projects of Asian modernity that simultaneously sought to imitate Western models and assert regional singularities.

This article proposes an interpretative synthesis of Charles R. Boxer’s approach to society in the Luso-Oriental Empire (16th–18th centuries), articulating his concept of a “Civil Empire” with the social framework of the “State of India.” Starting from the premise that Boxer’s category extends beyond the strictly social plane to encompass forms of occupation, economic exploitation, political networks, and missionary methodologies, the study organizes the societal portrait based on the main groups Boxer identifies: soldiers (including unmarried “soldiers”), “casados”/settlers, clergy, and also marginal segments such as vagabonds, adventurers, and beggars. The analysis emphasizes how the image of the Portuguese empire is defined less by a coherent military “machine” and more by a historical structure marked by social processes and practices of governance, especially considering the implicit contrast with the Spanish/overseas “Military Empire.” Methodologically, the text operates as a critical and contextual reading of Boxer, discussing its assumptions and limitations (including the debate on “racial discrimination” and the underanalysis of the Far East) and, from there, advances an interpretative conclusion: the Luso model in the East would have operated more according to civil logics than military ones, albeit traversed by conflicts, fragilities, and reorganizations of power.

The levels of civic engagement in terms of social services and civic activism in the Catholic churches of Hong Kong, Macau, Taipei, and Shanghai are very different. While the former three churches have a higher level of social services, Shanghai does not. Hong Kong has a higher level of civic activism than the other three dioceses. This paper explains the similarities and differences among these cities by using an analytical model of political, cultural, and individual opportunity structures. Our findings and analysis are derived from a collaborative research project on the Catholic Church’s civic engagement in the four cities using both quantitative and qualitative research methods. In a time of rapid political, economic, and social transformation in China, religion is beginning to play an increasingly important role. Our study sheds light on what roles Catholicism or other religions might play in this process, and it has important implications for church-state relations in greater China.

Em 1549 os missionários da Companhia de Jesus estabeleciam a missão do Japão, inaugurando um período de evangelização católica que se prolongou até à década de 1640. O sucesso da conversão dos nipónicos levou a que, a partir da década de 1590, as ordens mendicantes fossem no encalço dos jesuítas. O período coincidiu com o momento em que o regime Tokugawa impôs no Japão um processo de centralização política de cariz autoritário. A doutrina católica e as atitudes dos missionários colidiram com a nova ordem estabelecida pelos Tokugawa que, por isso, promoveram uma política sistemática anticristã. O sucesso da evangelização deu lugar a uma missão martirizada que serviu para alimentar uma vasta produção tipográfica na Europa Católica de Seiscentos, tanto mais que ia ao encontro das tendências devocionais da Europa da Contra-Reforma e da espiritualidade do Barroco. Por esta via, a Europa tomou contacto com a longínqua Ásia. Mas os textos missionários impressos não tinham apenas fins informativos. A dinâmica tipográfica gerada servia também para fazer a apologia de cada uma das ordens missionárias e assim influenciar os poderes políticos e religiosos a fim defenderem os seus direitos de evangelização. O martírio no Japão foi assim utilizado como arma de propaganda pelas ordens missionárias na Europa.

This article describes the processes that culminated in Pope Pius XT's historic 1926 consecration of the first native Chinese Catholic bishops of modern times. Since the first Chinese bishop had been named some 250 years before, the many obstacles that prevented the naming of nevo native bishops in the intervening centuries are explored. Spurred by progressive missionaries, the Church embarked on a reform program to indigenize the Catholic episcopacy in China. In doing so, the Holy See had to overcome opposition from powerful constituencies. A brief portrait of the six bishops provides insight into the reasons why Rome decided on this particular group of candidates.