The School of Philosophy at Renmin University of China has for several years offered a two-year M.A. program in Chinese Philosophy, Religion, and Culture (CPRC). All courses for this program (except Chinese language) are taught in English. It offers overseas students who are not proficient in Mandarin a valuable opportunity to study Chinese philosophy, religion, and culture whilst living in China. It also provides opportunities to study Chinese and experience intercultural communication with professors and classmates of diverse cultural backgrounds and experiences.

For more information, see the programs summary poster here, further information here, and the official website here.

For a list of specialists affiliated with the program, read on.

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Paul J. D’Ambrosio, Dean of the Center for Intercultural Research and Associate Professor in Chinese Philosophy at East China Normal University, writes with some information on ECNU’s English-language graduate programs:

For almost a decade East China Normal University has run a highly successful graduate (M.A. and Ph.D.) program in Chinese philosophy taught in English. In recent years we have begun to implement a method of teaching Chinese philosophy that centers on the practice, or gongfu (“kung-fu”), of doing philosophy with classical texts. The gongfu or “skills-based” approach focuses on developing skills of close reading and interpretation in the original Chinese. We work together to understand, unpack, and explore the interpretive possibilities of specific passages within the context of the traditional works themselves. The core courses ask students to read aloud passages from the Analects, Laozi, Mencius, and Zhuangzi in Chinese and then themselves lead investigative discussions of what those passages can mean. The professors guide discussion, helping correct misreadings and drawing on traditional and modern commentaries to elucidate which interpretations have historically proven most influential and (perhaps) why. While aiming to familiarize and inform, the emphasis in class lies on cultivating the skills essential to soundly analyzing the traditional texts.

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