On the evening of 28 December 2021, the fortieth session of the“Duyan”Reading Club of the Institute for Central Asian Studies of Lanzhou University was held in Conference Room 602 at the Student Activity Centre. More than thirty teachers and students from the School of Politics and International Relations and the School of Marxism of Lanzhou University attended the meeting.

The two papers in this reading are Differential questioning and the art of questioning in qualitative sociological research' (Zhao Dingxin, Sociological Studies,2021, Vol. 5, pp. 113-134) and 'Zero-sumexpansionist thinking and religious policy in pre-modern empires - an analytical framework centred on the relationship between church and state' (Sun Yanfei, Sociological Studies, 2019,Vol. 2, pp. 96-122).

First of all, the host of the reading, Yu Jinping, gave a brief introduction to the author of the article and its content.This was followed by a discussion on the takeaways, inspirations and confusions of the students around the two papers. The presentations focused on three main aspects. Firstly, students generally agreed that the structure of the two papers was clear, the perspectives were novel, and the references were rich and worthy of in-depth study. Secondly, the students raised some questions about the papers. For example, how should differential questioning be operationalised? Could more cases be introduced to argue for the reasons why different pre-modern empires adopted different religious policies? Should there be more typological distinctions about the relationship between church and state? And so on. Thirdly, the students talked about what the papers had inspired them to do and raised some questions that they would like to think about further.

Finally, Mr. Zeng Xianghong responded to the questions raised by the students during the discussion and summarized them. Mr. Zeng made the following points: Firstly, he encouraged students to be curious, and to understand and reflect on the in-depth reading of the literature in the context of the author's own academic background and the development of his discipline or academic community. Secondly, the relationship between the form and the content of an essay is important, but the form of the essay should not be neglected at the same time. In the process of writing, students should pay attention to the wording of their essays and not sacrifice brevity for the sake of writing length. The authors of the two papers chosen for this reading are well educated, especially in the review of existing literature where the two authors succinctly point out the shortcomings of existing research, which is worthy of further imitation by students. Thirdly, how to deal with one's value judgement in the process of writing a dissertation. Mr Zeng pointed out that it is impossible to be truly value-neutral in dissertation writing. Students should do theoretical research with scientific significance on the basis of being as close to value-neutral as possible. Fourthly, Mr. Zeng suggested that students could further explore the theoretical scope of the philosophy of science and deepen their understanding of the relationship between “ontology” and “methodology”, and avoid “methodological nihilism”.

In the end, Mr. Zeng encouraged the students to take part in the "Eurasian Academic Compilation" and provide academic public goods while actively reading and thinking.