Author Archives: Ernesto Ye Luo

Tongdong Bai’s Book Symposium on Against Political Equality—The Confucian Case

City University of Hong Kong is presenting an online book symposium on Tong Dongbai’s Against Political Equality: The Case of Confucianism:

Date: October 23, 2020 (Friday)
Time: 9:00am-12:00pm (HKT)
Venue: Online (The panel will be held in Zoom)

Participants:
Tongdong Bai, Fudan University
Sungmoon Kim, City University of Hong Kong
Alan Patten, Princeton University
Russell A. Fox, Friends University
Hui-chieh Loy, National University of Singapore

Registration is required to attend this event.  To register, please email Mr. David Chung: kinchung@cityu.edu.hk.

The following is an abstract of Tong Dongbai’s book:
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Jiwei Ci’s Book Symposium on Democracy in China—The Coming Crisis

City University of Hong Kong is presenting an online book symposium on Jiwei Ci’s Democracy in China: The Coming Crisis:

Date: October 24, 2020 (Saturday)
Time: 9:00am-12:00pm (HKT)
Venue: Online (The panel will be held in Zoom)

Participants:
Jiwei Ci, University of Hong Kong
Sungmoon Kim, City University of Hong Kong
Joseph Chan, University of Hong Kong
Tomer Perry, Minerva Schools at KGI

Registration is required to attend this event.  To register, please email Mr. David Chung: kinchung@cityu.edu.hk.

The following is an abstract of Jiwei Ci’s book:

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New Book: Cross-Cultural Existentialism: On the Meaning of Life in Asian and Western Thought

Leah Kalmanson’s new book, Cross-Cultural Existentialism: On the Meaning of Life in Asian and Western Thought, has been published by Bloomsbury!  A brief description of the book:

Engaging in existential discourse beyond the European tradition, this book turns to Asian philosophies to reassess vital questions of life’s purpose, death’s imminence, and our capacity for living meaningfully in conditions of uncertainty.

Inspired by the dilemmas of European existentialism, this cross-cultural study seeks concrete techniques for existential practice via the philosophies of East Asia. The investigation begins with the provocative writings of twentieth-century Korean Buddhist nun Kim Iryop, who asserts that meditative concentration conducts a potent energy outward throughout the entire karmic network, enabling the radical transformation of our shared existential conditions. Understanding her claim requires a look at East Asian sources more broadly. Considering practices as diverse as Buddhist merit-making ceremonies, Confucian/Ruist methods for self-cultivation, the ritual memorization and recitation of texts, and Yijing divination, the book concludes by advocating a speculative turn. This ‘speculative existentialism’ counters the suspicion toward metaphysics characteristic of twentieth-century European existential thought and, at the same time, advances a program for action. It is not a how-to guide for living, but rather a philosophical methodology that takes seriously the power of mental cultivation to transform the meaning of the life that we share.

Click here for more information about the book.

New Book: Transcendence and Non-Naturalism in Early Chinese Thought

Alexus McLeod and Joshua R. Brown’s new book, Transcendence and Non-Naturalism in Early Chinese Thought, has been published by Bloomsbury! A brief description:

Contemporary scholars of Chinese philosophy often presuppose that early China possessed a naturalistic worldview, devoid of any non-natural concepts, such as transcendence. Challenging this presupposition head-on, Joshua R. Brown and Alexus McLeod argue that non-naturalism and transcendence have a robust and significant place in early Chinese thought.

This book reveals that non-naturalist positions can be found in early Chinese texts, in topics including conceptions of the divine, cosmogony, and apophatic philosophy. Moreover, by closely examining a range of early Chinese texts, and providing comparative readings of a number of Western texts and thinkers, the book offers a way of reading early Chinese Philosophy as consistent with the religious philosophy of the East and West, including the Abrahamic and the Brahmanistic religions.

Co-written by a philosopher and theologian, this book draws out unique insights into early Chinese thought, highlighting in particular new ways to consider a range of Chinese concepts, including tian, dao, li, and you/wu.

Click here for more information.

TOC: Journal of Confucian Philosophy and Culture Vol.34

The editors are delighted to announce the publication of Volume 34 of the Journal of Confucian Philosophy and Culture (JCPC). JCPC is published biannually (in February and August) and welcomes contributions of both articles and book reviews by qualified authors from around the world. The journal is cross-disciplinary in its outlook and presents work from philosophers, anthropologists, psychologists, sociologists, historians, theologians, political scientists as well as other disciplines. JCPC examines the historical, doctrinal, literary, social, and political developments that have formed contemporary versions of Confucianism for the purpose of interpreting and exploring Confucianism from a modern perspective. The Journal is indexed in AtlaSerials, BAS (Bibliography of Asian Studies), MLA Directory of Periodicals, and KCI (Korea Citation Index). The attached file contains the cover and complete table of contents of Volume 34. The complete volume is available online at our web site: http://jcpc.skku.edu/.