The Department of Philosophy at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) invites applications for a tenure-track appointment at the level of Assistant Professor with specialization in the field of Asian Philosophy and competence open (though we have a special interest in competence in Comparative Philosophy), to begin in August 2024. We seek candidates with strong research potential who are committed to excellence in undergraduate teaching and identify with the mission of UMBC, in particular concerning furthering the goals of diversity, equity, and inclusiveness.
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Author Archives: Chris Fraser
Varieties of Ineffability Registration & Programme
Varieties of Ineffability in Ancient Philosophy
Online conference, 18th-21st September 2023
Call for Registration & Programme
CFA: Varieties of Ineffability in Ancient Philosophy
Varieties of Ineffability in Ancient Philosophy
Online conference, 18th-21st September 2023
Call for Abstracts –Deadline: 1 February 2023
We invite proposals for papers to be given at an online conference on varieties of ineffability in ancient philosophy (spanning ancient Chinese, Graeco-Roman and Indian thought), on 18th-21st September 2023. The conference is expected to take place in the afternoon (British Summer Time) over the course of the four days.
New(ish) Book: The Essential Mozi
A much belated book announcement: My recent translation of the Mozi is available from Oxford University Press here.
A bilingual version of the chapters on the later Mohist “Dialectics” is available free of charge at this link: Mohistcanons.net
Job Opening: University of Hong Kong, Asian Philosophy
The Department of Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong is inviting applications for an open rank, tenure-track post. Candidates are expected to have Asian philosophy as an area of specialization. Applications will be accepted on line only, through the Academic Jobs Online service. The URL for the job listing is:
https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/9906
The link above provides a detailed description of the application requirements and procedures.
“What Makes Us Human?” Summer Course at CEU
Applications are invited for an interdisciplinary, comparative summer course entitled “What Makes Us Human? Philosophical and Religious Perspectives in China and the West” to be held at Central European University in Budapest from July 4 to 15. The course looks at the question of what it is to be human from a range of intellectual perspectives in traditional Chinese and Greek thought, covering philosophy, psychology, religion, science, and medicine.
The course director is Curie Virág (East Asian Studies, Toronto), and faculty include Gabor Betegh (Classics, Christ’s College, Cambridge University), Chris Fraser (Philosophy, Hong Kong), Donald Harper (East Asian Languages & Civilizations, Chicago), Brooke Holmes (Classics, Princeton), Maria Kronfeldner (Philosophy, CEU), and Matthias Riedl (History, CEU).
Here’s the course description from the program catalogue: Continue reading →
Support the Chinese Text Project!
If you work with early Chinese texts, you have probably used the Chinese Text Project (ctext.org), a wonderful on-line resource created by Donald Sturgeon some years ago while he was still a master’s student in Taiwan.
To many of us, within two or three years of its founding, ctext.org had become a more convenient and useful research tool than the online e-text resources created by large institutions such as Academia Sinica. As Donald has continued to expand the site’s functions — such as by adding a dictionary and concordance indexing — its utility has overtaken that of any rival Chinese text database, online or not.
Often, while working on a book chapter or essay, I have multiple browser windows open displaying different pages of content from ctext.org. I’m sure many others in the field use the site the same way.
All that useful content takes up a lot of server resources, however, which someone has to pay for. For years now, that someone has mainly been Donald himself. He’s had a few welcome anonymous donations and a handful of short-term sponsors, but by and large the costs for the site come out of his own pocket. And that’s not counting all the time and programming expertise that he’s put into it.
So a graduate student living on a modest stipend in one of the world’s most expensive cities is paying for a valuable research tool that all of us use.
May I suggest that those of us who can afford it — not graduate students, but professors and other interested readers — consider donating to support the site’s operations? You can do so through Paypal on the site’s support and donation page here. To those of us who visit the site frequently, the Chinese Text Project is worth much more than the cost of a book and probably more than the cost of most of the software on our computers. So why not consider donating an amount equal to the price of a book or a software package to support the continued operation and growth of this invaluable resource?
And if you’re in a position to do so, consider arranging for an institutional subscription to or sponsorship of the site, as described here.
This is a project that deserves our support.
— Chris Fraser
Robins to HKU
Dan Robins, a frequent contributor to this blog, has accepted a job offer from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong. Congratulations, Dan! Dan joins several other colleagues at HKU working in Chinese philosophy: Chad Hansen, who has returned to teach common core curriculum courses on behalf of the Department of Philosophy; Tang Siufu, in the School of Chinese; Joseph Chan, in the Department of Politics and Public Administration; and myself, in the Department of Philosophy.
Philosophy Job Opening at HKU
HKU’s Department of Philosophy has an opening for an assistant professor of philosophy. The area of specialization for the post is not Chinese philosophy, but preference is likely to be given to candidates with competence in Chinese or Chinese-Western comparative philosophy in addition to another area. So people working in Chinese or comparative philosophy are strongly encouraged to apply.
The first paragraphs of the advertisement run as follows:
"Moderation in Burials," 21st Century Version
The Mohist doctrine of “Moderation in Burial” seems to be winning converts among officials in China these days.
The New York Times reports that “After a quarter of a century in which the gap between rich and poor has steadily widened, the wretched excesses of the affluent are increasingly a Chinese government concern.”
“Ostentatious tombs are particularly irksome…because many Chinese find even a simple grave marker beyond their means. In a coinage that captures the widespread frustration, someone struggling to afford burial costs is called a ‘grave slave.'” Continue reading →