New Funding Opportunities in Buddhist Studies

The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) announces a new initiative supporting research and teaching in Buddhist studies funded by a $1.9 million grant from the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation. Working with the Foundation, ACLS will offer an articulated set of fellowship and grant competitions that will expand the understanding and interpretation of Buddhist thought in scholarship and society, strengthen international networks of Buddhist studies, and increase the visibility of innovative currents in those studies. ACLS will organize competitions for the following:

These are global competitions. There are no restrictions as to the location of work proposed or the citizenship of applicants.

Applications must be submitted through the ACLS Online Fellowship Application system (OFA). Sample applications and a link to OFA will be available in July 2013. Further details may be found here: http://www.acls.org/programs/buddhist-studies/

“Comparative Enlightenments” Forum at Wesleyan

Last weekend, Wesleyan hosted an interdisciplinary forum on “comparative enlightenments” that blog readers might find interesting; read here for an account in English, and here for a Chinese summary. Keynote remarks were offered by Wang Weiguang and Gao Xiang of CASS and Hayden White of Stanford. Participants included philosophers like Chen Lai (Tsinghua), Wu Genyou (Wuhan), Ding Yun (Fudan), Han Shuifa (Beijing), and Akeel Bilgrami (Columbia), as well as literary theorists and historians. (It’s interesting to note the differences of emphasis in the two write-ups :-).)

Against Empathy

The following article in this week’s New Yorker by Yale psychologist Paul Bloom has been circulating in social networks:

The Baby in the Well: The Case Against Empathy

Despite what many of us on this blog might initially wonder, the title of the paper does not refer to Mencius’s famous thought experiment.  (Instead, it refers to the famous case of an actual child in a well that led to a worldwide media circus in the 1980s.)  Nonetheless, the article may be of interest to those of us working in Confucian ethics and moral psychology.

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Position in Pre-Modern Chinese Studies at UPenn

The Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania invites applications for a full-time, non-tenure-track lectureship in pre-modern Chinese studies, for the academic year 2013-14. The appointment will be for one year with the possibility of annual renewal for up to an additional two years based on satisfactory performance and approval of the Dean. The successful candidate will teach two classes each semester, and will be responsible for directing the departments M.A. program. The Ph.D. degree is expected at the time of the appointment. Candidates who are ABD at the time of application should specify a date for completion and awarding of the degree in their cover letter.

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Conference on Late Imperial Chinese Reading and Textual production

Please be informed that Penn State University will be hosting an International Symposium on “Reading, Textual Production, and Literati Culture in Late Imperial China,” May 31-June 1, 2013. The event is cosponsored by the Asian Studies Program and Confucius Institute at Penn State University, and the Department of Chinese Culture at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. It is open to the public and anyone interested is welcome to attend.  For information, please contact On-cho Ng <oxn1@psu.edu>.

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Call for Abstracts: 2013 Northeast Conference on Chinese Thought

NECCT 2013 Call for Abstracts

We hereby request submissions of abstracts for the Northeast Conference on Chinese Thought (NECCT), to be held at Wesleyan University on Friday and Saturday, November 8-9, 2013.

Interested scholars should send an abstract of no more than one single-spaced page, plus a current CV, to Stephen Angle (sangle@wesleyan.edu) no later than June 1, 2013. All files should either be in Word or .pdf format.

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Tu Weiming Lecture at Harvard

Tuesday, May 7, 12:30 p.m.

Cultural China Reexamined: The Question of Identity

Tu Weiming, Director, Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies, Peking University; Senior Fellow, Harvard University Asia Center

Chaired by Prof. Elizabeth Perry, Dept. of Government, Harvard University; Director, Harvard-Yenching Institute
Sponsored by the Harvard-Yenching Institute and the Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard
Common Room, 2 Divinity Ave., Cambridge

Colloquium in Shanghai on Chinese and African Philosophy

Chinese and African Philosophy: A Conversation

A colloquium is being organized by Marius Vermaak (Rhodes University, South Africa), Daniel A. Bell (Jiaotong University, the PRC) and Thaddeus Metz (University of Johannesburg, South Africa), and is being supported by the Confucius Institute at Rhodes University (South Africa). To be held 10, 11 and 12 May 2013, and hosted by the Humanities Faculty of Jiaotong University in Shanghai.

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