The documentary, Wisdom of China: Laozi, is now available on YouTube. This documentary discusses the historical evidence regarding Laozi and the meaning of the Daodejing, but also looks at the immense influence of Laozi’s ideas on topics as diverse as green energy, modern physics, politics, the martial arts, music, and the counter-culture movement of the 1960s and 1970s. The diverse figures discussed include Confucius, Abraham Lincoln, Bruce Lee, Ursula K. Le Guinn, The Beatles, and Nobel Laureate in physics Niels Bohr. Among the scholars interviewed are Feng Cao (Chinese People’s University), Xia Chen (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), Guying Cheng (Peking University), Alexus McLeod (Indiana University), Michael Puett (Harvard University), Misha Tadd (Nankai University), and Lihua Yang (Peking University).
Category Archives: Daoism
ToC: Dao 24:4
Dao 24:4 has been published; see here and below for the Table of Contents. Continue reading →
Online Course: Worldmodels & Ontologies: Visions of Reality in Chinese Thought
The online course “Worldmodels & Ontologies: Visions of Reality in Chinese Thought” will be running from Thursday, 16 October to Thursday, 18 December 2025. This seminar is designed in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Zurich, the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, and National Chengchi University (NCCU). Scholars, students, and practitioners are warmly invited to join this collaborative exploration of how different textual traditions in China have structured their visions of reality. Please find the course description and schedule here.
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Episode 25 of “This Is the Way”: Daoist Utopia
In this episode, we delve into Chapter 80 of the Daodejing, one of the most vivid portraits of Daoist social ideals. We unpack its vision of a “simple agrarian utopia,” where people live in small communities, ignore labor-saving tools, and resist the endless chase for more. Along the way, we discuss political minimalism, technological restraint, contentment in daily life, and radical localism, asking what it would mean to be satisfied even while knowing other or “better” possibilities exist. We reflect on our own consumerist culture, and probe whether Daoist utopia is naive, radical, or unexpectedly wise for our time. Continue reading →
ToC: Asian Studies 13:3
Vol. 13 No. 3 of Asian Studies has been recently published. Please see here and below for the Table of Contents. Continue reading →
New Book: Berger, Introducing Chinese Philosophy
Douglas L. Berger, Introducing Chinese Philosophy: From the Warring States to the 21st Century has been recently published through Routledge. The book presents an introductory survey of the major themes, thinkers and texts, philosophical genres and profound insights of the Chinese philosophical tradition. Its coverage ranges from the foundational history of Chinese thought in the 6th–5th centuries BCE up to the present day.
To access the book for further reading, please visit this site.
ToC: Dao 24:2
Dao 24:1 has been published; see here and below for the Table of Contents. Continue reading →
ToC: Asian Studies 13:2
The newest issue of Asian Studies just recently came out through The University of Ljubljana. Please read more to find the table of contents. Additionally, you can also see the full issue through this link.
New Book: Tiwald, The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Philosophy
The Handbook of Chinese Philosophy has recently been released online by Oxford University Press, with paper copies set to release in August. The handbook collects new work on important texts and figures in the history of Chinese thought. The chapters cover both well-known texts such as the Analects and the Zhuangzi and many of the lesser-known thinkers in the classical and postclassical Chinese tradition. Most of the chapters focus on thinkers or texts in one of three important historical movements. These include classical (“pre-Qin”) Chinese philosophy, Chinese Buddhism, and the Confucian response to Buddhism (“neo-Confucianism” broadly construed). Each chapter presents cutting-edge work on important topics in the Chinese tradition and yet is written for a general philosophical audience. For more information, please see this site, and the Table of Contents follows.Presentation Summaries of the 7th Rutgers Workshop on Chinese Philosophy
The Rutgers University Department of Philosophy has produced summaries of the presentations and discussion from the 7th Rutgers Workshop on Chinese Philosophy (RWCP), “An International Conference on Moral Conflict in Early Chinese Philosophy.” The summaries were produced by the workshop’s rapporteurs, Frederick Choo and Esther Goh, who are doctoral candidates at Rutgers University Department of Philosophy. Please find the summaries in this document.
