29 August - 1 September 1994 Prague, Czech Republic THE TENTH EACS CONFERENCE The tenth bi-annual conference of the European Association of Chinese Studies was held in the capital of the Czech Republic from 29 August to 1 September, hosted by the Institute of Far Eastern Studies of Charles University. Approximately 200 sinologists from all over Europe convened on the borders of the Vltava river to discuss the general topic of "Genius Loci: Place, Region and Chinese regionalism" as well as other topics in Chinese studies. By Michel Hockx and Frank Pieke During the opening session, Professor Oldžich Kral reminded the participants of the historical significance of the conference: there was to have been such a conference in Prague in 1968, but preparations were rudely interrupted by the advent of the Red Army. All through the conference, the organizers displayed an almost tangible sense of pride in having achieved what had been impossible for so long. Their immense enthusiasm and helpfulness made all participants feel at home almost immediately. As a result, the conference, housed completely under one roof, took place in a very congenial atmosphere. The conference started out on a sad note, when Professor Michael Loewe read an obituary for former Leiden University Professor Toon Hulsew‚, one of the founders of what is now the EACS. Moreover, during the first modern literature session, Professor Bonnie McDougall fulfilled the unpleasant duty of announcing the death of Cambridge University Professor and modern Chinese literature specialist Ng Mau-Sang. There was an unprecedented total of three panels on modern Chinese literature during this conference. Although the topic of regionalism was certainly not absent from these sessions, discussions tended to address broader questions concerning the entire corpus of modern Chinese literature, which is undergoing rapid changes due to both the productivity of contemporary Chinese authors inside and outside China, as well as the enormous number of reprints of pre-war magazines that have become available during the past decade. Papers presented dealt to a large extent with authors not belonging to the standard canon of modern Chinese literature, while serious doubts were shed on the representativeness of the canon itself in two papers by Bonnie McDougall. More than before, attention was also paid to phenomena belonging to the realm of the "literary world" during the various stages of development of twentieth-century Chinese literature, through papers discussing, for instance "exile literature", literary societies and writers in the late imperial courtesan scene. Other aspects of sinology were also well covered during the conference. Three panels were organized on Chinese economics with many Eastern European contributions. Other panels focussed on foreign policy, linguistics, ancient and modern history, classical poetry, religious sects, philosophy, archaeology, and teaching Chinese as a foreign language. All in all, the 10th EACS conference was a very successful one. It has finally and definitively closed the former gap between East and West in European sinology and laid the basis for fruitful co-operation in various fields. The members of the EACS will meet again in Barcelona in 1996.