Having finished the Daodejing section of my introductory course, one of my students said to me, “The Daoist sage doesn’t sound very friendly.” That caught me by surprise because I had always based my images of Daoist sages on the colorful — and it seems to me, friendly — figures in the Zhuangzi, including the image of Zhuangzi and Huizi having clever and fun conversations with each other. But I realized that my student was responding to the account in the Daodejing and that she was onto something. Continue reading →
Daily Archives: November 18, 2009
Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme
Some news of interest to students considering pursuing a Ph.D. in Chinese or comparative philosophy:
The Research Grants Council (RGC) of the Hong Kong government has recently established a Ph.D. fellowship scheme aimed at attracting outstanding students from all parts of the world to pursue full-time Ph.D. studies in Hong Kong’s universities. The fellowship provides a monthly stipend of HK$20,000 (the equivalent of more than US $30,000/year) and an annual conference or research-related travel allowance of HK$10,000 for either three or four years, depending on the degree program in which a student is enrolled. Over the next year, 135 of these fellowships will be awarded to students at institutions in Hong Kong.
Details about the scheme as it pertains to the University of Hong Kong are available here. (For other universities, see their respective websites.) The application deadline is December 1.
