The 2025 Northeast Conference on Chinese Thought (NECCT) will take place Friday, November 14 to Saturday, November 15, 2025 at Duke University. The conference website, with schedule, registration, and other information is here.
Author Archives: Steve Angle
One-Semester Position at Wesleyan
The College of East Asian Studies at Wesleyan University invites applications for a Visiting Professor or Visiting Instructor in Pre-Modern Chinese Philosophy and Culture, to begin in January 2026. Term of appointment is one semester. The successful candidate will teach three courses, with no advising or service expectations. One course will be Classical Chinese Philosophy; the other two courses can be in philosophy or other humanistic disciplines so long as the focus is on pre-twentieth century China. Review of applications will begin on October 17th and will continue until the position has been filled
For more information and to apply, please see here.
CFP: Franciscan and Neo-Confucian philosophy
Lance Gracy is seeking abstracts for an upcoming edited volume on Franciscan and Neo-Confucian philosophy. The contributed works would assess anew the “metaxological space” of Franciscan and Neo-Confucian philosophy with the aim of conveying the mutual flowering and divergence between the two traditions. With renewed interest in comparative philosophy, the objective of the upcoming edited volume is to intellectually undertake the challenge of discovering indelible species in a “land”—still somewhat obscured—nestled between two expansive world traditions, so to better situate them within contemporary context. While most adjacent scholarship addressing the dynamism of the two traditions is historical or piece-meal, sustained philosophical analysis of the space between them remains an alluring frontier with signs of both difficulty and promise.
For more information, see here; the deadline is October 3.
Angle Reviews Li, Reshaping Confucianism
Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
Chenyang Li, Reshaping Confucianism: Philosophical Explorations, Oxford University Press, 2023, 344pp., $36.99 (pbk), ISBN 9780197657638.
Reviewed by Stephan C. Angle, Wesleyan University
Over a career spanning more than three decades, Chenyang Li has become one of the world’s leading interpreters of Confucian philosophy. From the beginning, he has been interested in both historical interpretation and more contemporary questions about comparison across traditions and philosophical development. Reshaping Confucianism is the culmination of Li’s work so far, bringing together and further refining a range of his groundbreaking arguments on issues including harmony, care, ritual, gender, freedom, and equality, as well as on newer topics like friendship, longevity, and civic education. The book is both an ideal overview of Li’s wide-ranging views and, taken as…
Controversy Surrounding Tu Wei-ming’s Remarks at HK Philosophy Forum
Earlier in August, an event called the “2025 香港哲學紫剂國際論壇 / 2025 Hong Kong Bauhinia International Philosophy Forum” was held in Hong Kong. Prof. Tu Wei-ming delivered a keynote address (on-line). Since then, there has been considerable controversy about the event — which did not prominently feature any Hong Kong-born philosophers — and about Tu’s remarks, which were broadly apolitical. In particular, this critical essay by Cheung Chan Fai 張燦輝, former chair of the CUHK Philosophy Department, and Lee Shui-Chuen 李瑞全 of National Central University’s Philosophy Department (and an important contemporary Confucian voice) has received a great deal of attention.
Launch of the Chinese-Greek Philosophy Forum & Inaugural Lecture
A message from the following new forum’s coordinators, Dimitra Amarantidou & Anna Irene Baka:
We are very excited to announce the launch of Geju yu Dongjian 格局与洞见: The Chinese-Greek Philosophy Forum.
Our forum is an open space for teachers and students of Chinese and Greek philosophies to debate ideas, compare methods, and exchange insights, while we also welcome interdisciplinary perspectives.
You are warmly invited to our inaugural event (on zoom):
Speaker: Professor Robin R. Wang 王蓉蓉 (Loyola Marymount University)
Lecture Title: “On Subtle Proximity: The Greek Paradox of Sorites and the Chinese Maxim of Qiqi 欹器”
Date: Wednesday, September 17, 2025
Time: 9:00 PM Beijing Time
All our events are free and open to students and scholars with an interest in Chinese and Greek philosophies.
For more information, you can visit our website: chinesegreekforum.com
You can also contact us at: chinesegreekforum@gmail.com
See you there!
New Article: Jin on Xu Fuguan
Jin Yutang (Politics and public Administration, HKU) has published a new article in The History of Political Thought titled “Confucian Virtue Politics in Modern Times: A Reappraisal of Xu Fuguan’s Confucian Democracy.” See here for abstract and other information.
2025-26 Columbia Neo-Confucianism Seminar Schedule
In the 2025-26 academic year, the Neo-Confucian Studies Seminar will continue to meet in person at the Heyman Center on Columbia campus, normally 3:30-5:30pm on a Friday.
This year they will host six speakers:
10/10 Justin Tiwald (University of Hong Kong)
11/7 Taisu Zhang (Yale Law School)
12/5 Geoffrey Redmond (Independent scholar)
3/6 Dandan Chen (Farmingdale State College)
4/3 John Lombardini (College of William and Mary
5/1 PJ Ivanhoe (Georgetown University)
For more information, please contact the Seminar’s rapporteur, Ivy Chen <lc3131@columbia.edu>.
Roundtable on Radical Democracy in Chinese Thought at Univ. of Toronto
On September 5, there will be a “Roundtable on Radical Democracy in Chinese Thought” at the University of Toronto — details here, including free registration.
Caro on Modern Confucianism in the PRC
Carlo Caro has published a five-part exploration of Confucianism and the foundations of political legitimacy in The Diplomat.
Bureaucratized Confucianism: How Tradition Became a Tool of Control
Erasing Confucian Cosmology: How Harmony Lost Its Soul
Legal Minimalism – How Sentience Disappeared from Chinese Law
The Elimination of Remonstrance: From Confucian Conscience to Organizational Discipline
Systemic Suppression: The Silent Elimination of Alternative Confucianism
Series link: https://thediplomat.com/tag/simulated-sagehood/
