“Boston Confucian” Lecture Series, with The Wisdom of Chinese Art Nov. 7

Students at Boston University are putting on a good-looking lecture series; click here for details. This coming Friday, Yair Lior will be presenting on “The Wisdom of Chinese Art”:

The lecture will be titled “The Wisdom of Chinese Art” and will look at different philosophical ideas that inform Chinese art theory, especially landscape painting. It will also look at the unique relationship between Chinese calligraphy, the literati class, and the development of Song-Yuan landscapes. These themes will be explored with constant allusions to concepts of perspective, brush techniques, and choices of subject-matter in European oil painting. Perhaps most importantly, the lecture will give us an opportunity to look at the beautiful images produced by Chinese painters.

Dao Interested in Reviewers of Chinese Books

BAI Tongdong, professor at Fundan University, is in charge of reviews of Chinese-language books for Dao. He recently sent around a list of new books in which he is potentially interested in a review. Anyone interested in reviewing one of these books, please contact Prof. Bai directly. In addition, I thought that many readers might be interested in Prof. Bai’s list of these books, so it is posted below.

Continue reading →

New Analects Translation

Penguin has recently brought out a new translation of, and commentary on, the Analects, by Annping Chin. The Amazon page is here, at which one can get a good sense of the format and goals of this new translation. Considerable comentary is appended after each passage, with a combination of Chin’s own thoughts and comments from mostly post-Song (primarily Qing to the present) scholars. Chinese text is provided in an appendix. Anyone have any thoughts on this new translation?

In Memoriam: David S. Nivison (1923-2014)

American sinologist and philosopher David Nivison passed away on the 16th of this month. Nivison was a true polymath and made tremendous contributions to a variety of fields that overlapped with Chinese thought and history. For most readers of this blog, he will perhaps be best remembered for his contributions to Chinese philosophy, which was greatly enriched by his work on Daoists and Confucian philosophers across history, including the classical period as well as the Song, Ming and Qing dynasties. For much of his adult life, he also served as one of a small handful of scholars working on Chinese thought under the aegis of a Western philosophy department, and played a major role in integrating Chinese philosophy with contemporary philosophy as practiced in the English-speaking world. Among his best-known books are The Life and Thought of Chang Hsueh-ch’eng, The Ways of Confucianism, and The Riddle of the Bamboo Annals.

There are two substantial obituaries available on-line. One in English and the other in Chinese. The latter includes a nice collection of photographs.

ISCWP Panels at APA Pacific Division Meeting 2015

ISCWP (The International Society for Comparative Studies of Chinese and Western Philosophy) will sponsor two panels at APA Pacific Division Meeting in April 2015:

Panel #1: History, Atonement, and Care Ethics: Comparative Perspectives

Chair: John Berthrong (Boston University School of Theology)

 

1. “Sima Guang and Machiavelli: A History Lesson”

Billy Dean Goehring (University of Oregon)

Commentator: Yang Xiao (Kenyon College)

2. “Making Amends with Confucius and Royce”

Mathew A. Foust (Central Connecticut State University)

Commentator: Winnie Sung (Nanyang Technological University)

3. “What Are Other People If Not Hell?: The No Exit Objection and Intimate Relations

in Care Ethics and Confucianism”

Ian M. Sullivan (University of Hawaii at Manoa)

Commentator: Lijun Yuan (Texas State University-San Marcos)

Panel #2 “Non-Confucian Political Philosophy and its Contemporary Relevance”

Chair: Stephen Angle (Wesleyan University)

  1. “Shen Dao’s Conception of the Law and the Dao”

Eirik Lang Harris (City University of Hong Kong)

  1. “Mozi’s jian’ai and Political Philosophy”

Youngsun Back (City University of Hong Kong)

  1. “Hanfei on History and Political Philosophy”

Henrique Schneider (Karl Franzens Universität Graz)

  1. “Anarchism or Nihilism: Lessons From Daoist Anarchists for Post-Modern Critical Theory”

John Rapp (Beloit College)

New Book on the Confucian Revival in China

A message from Sébastien Billioud:

Chers amis et collègues, 
Nous sommes heureux de vous faire part de la publication de notre livre, Le Sage et le peuple. Le renouveau confucéen en Chine. Une brève présentation figure en pièce jointe.
Bien cordialement, 
Sébastien Billioud et Joël Thoraval
 
Dear friends and colleagues,
Our book, Le Sage et le peuple. Le renouveau confucéen en Chine (The Sage and the People. The Confucian Revival in China) will come out on October 23. A brief introduction (in French) is attached to this message. The English edition of the book is forthcoming (2015).
Best wishes, 
Sébastien Billioud and Joël Thoraval