English-based MA and Visiting Programs in Chinese Philosophy at Fudan, Shanghai

M.A. and Visiting Student Programs in Chinese Philosophy
With Courses Offered in English
Fudan University, Shanghai, China

Overview
These programs are aimed to offer opportunities of learning Chinese and studying Chinese philosophy to overseas postgraduates or college juniors and seniors who have not yet been able to master the Chinese language. In addition to Chinese language classes, these programs offer courses on Chinese philosophy as well as other related courses in English at Fudan University. Fudan University is a leading institution of higher education in China, and is experienced with and renowned for educating overseas students. The School of Philosophy at Fudan is a top philosophy department in China. The university is located in Shanghai, the most dynamic city of China that belongs to a region that is rich in Chinese traditions and cultures. It has been two years since these programs were launched, and 21 students have been enrolled in either the M.A. program (17 students) and the visiting student program (4 students). They are from the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Israel, and Indonesia, and many of them are top students in their classes, majoring in philosophy, classics, and/or East Asian or Chinese studies. The above facts make these programs simply the most successful of their kind (English-based higher and post-graduate education programs in Chinese philosophy) in mainland China.

  • M.A. Program: a two-year degree program, 29 credits (with 6 credits for 2 courses in Chinese Language) and a master thesis.
  • Visiting Student Program: a one-year program, 3-4 major courses, and 1-2 courses of Chinese, a certificate to be offered upon the completion.
  • Audit Program: individual-course-based program.
  • Tuition and Living Expenses: RMB 50,000 a year for tuition; on-campus housing: from RMB 1,200 per month to 2,700 per month; meals at an on-campus dining facility: RMB 1,000 per month.
  • Scholarships and part-time jobs abundantly available.

Application Deadlines: March 1 (Priority, for scholarships) and June 1.

For Further Information: http://iso.fudan.edu.cn/downloads/zgzx20121129.pdf

The International Student Office: http://www.fso.fudan.edu.cn/ or http://iso.fudan.edu.cn/en/

Or contact Prof. Bai Tongdong, baitongdong@fudan.edu.cn

Ph.D. Supervisors

I am writing a short piece on the state of Chinese Philosophy in American Philosophy Ph.D. programs (yes, I’m aware of the APA Newsletter report from a few years back and of the discussions on the predecessor to this blog).

By my count, there are presently a total of six Philosophy Ph.D. programs in the U.S. that have specialists on their faculty who are capable of supervising a Ph.D. dissertation with a focus on Chinese Philosophy:

  • DePaul: Franklin Perkins
  • Duke: David Wong
  • Hawai’i: Roger Ames and Chung-ying Cheng
  • Oklahoma: Amy Olberding
  • SUNY Buffalo: Jiyuan Yu
  • Utah: Eric Hutton

There are other ways of going about getting a Ph.D. in Chinese Philosophy (Ziporyn at Chicago, Schwitzgebel and Raphals at Riverside, not to mention programs outside the U.S.–and there are M.A. possibilities, etc.), but I am keeping my focus just on philosophers in Philosophy departments who are capable on their own of supervising Ph.D. dissertations in Chinese Philosophy.

Have I missed anybody?

 

 

CFP: Oriental Club’s Introduction Symposium

The Oriental Club of Philadelphia’s Introduction Symposium, Mar 3, 2013

The Oriental Club of Philadelphia, an academic society founded in 1888, is one of the oldest continuously running organizations of its kind in the U.S. In recent times, the OC has organized regular lectures, conferences, and symposia for scholars of Asian Studies in the Philadelphia area. This year, we are expanding our mission beyond our own neighborhood by inviting scholars from throughout PA, NJ, and DE and beyond to participate in our first-ever Introduction Symposium. All scholars, ABD graduate students, and library/museum professionals of Asian Studies (including East, South, Southeast, Central Asia, and the Near East) in the region are cordially invited to participate.

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AAUP Questions Yale-Singapore Collaboration

Though this is not explicitly about Chinese or Comparative philosophy, some issues about the clash between Singapore and ideals of Western liberalism arise because of Singapore’s social policies that are authoritarian and, because of that, sometimes coded as Confucian. The AAUP authors below raise questions about the wisdom of collaboration and accommodationism by Yale University with an “authoritarian regime” and argue that what is at stake are “not simply ‘cultural differences’ but whether Yale recognizes universal human rights and the protections for academic staff.”

I’m inclined to say that cultural differences are not so simple and that they might problematize the recognition of “universal human rights.” Not that the existence of cultural differences negates the existence of universal rights, but that they pose an epistemological question about how much confidence, relatively speaking, the West should place in some of the freedoms as being universally owed to people simply in virtue of their humanity. That’s a long, theoretical discussion, in which it helps to specify which purported rights are universal in such a way.

I’m mostly interested here in the practical wisdom of a hardline “all or nothing” approach the AAUP authors seem to be arguing for below. That is, they seem to be arguing that Yale should keep its hands spotlessly clean by staying out of a collaboration altogether if a rather long list of guarantees cannot be met fully at the proposed Yale-NUS campus. (Here is the link to the UNESCO recommendations referenced below.)

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Annual Contents, Frontiers of Philosophy in China

Here follows the Table of Contents for FPC‘s four 2012 issues. Issue 4, which will contain a major symposium on the Role Ethics interpretation of Confucianism of Roger Ames, has not yet been published. As discussed earlier on the blog, FPC changed its mission some time ago, and now publishes articles written in English from both within and without China.

FRONTIERS OF PHILOSOPHY IN CHINA

Volume 7 2012

CONTENTS
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Comparative Philosophy Seminar

I’m working up a syllabus for a seminar in  Comparative Philosophy for a new M.A. program that we are starting at E.M.U. (not official yet, but almost there).  Below is what I have come up with for my first draft.  If you have taught a course in Comparative Philosophy, or have contemplated doing so, I’d appreciate any feedback you can offer with regard to readings and topics.

As for the readings that have been included, you can see that I construe the overall subject matter fairly broadly (or do I?).

The course is divided roughly into two halves.  The first half covers issues in comparative philosophy.  The second half is broken further into two sections, the first of which covers actual examples of doing comparative philosophy; and the second of which covers classic texts that provide good opportunities for comparative analysis–to give the students an opportunity to practice and thereby realize first hand the many issues and difficulties involved.  The last few weeks are devoted to readings that propose how to use comparative methods to make advances in current philosophy.  I’ll probably swap those readings out for readings from an anthology that I am working on at the moment–the theme of which is using the resources of the Chinese tradition to advance issues in current philosophy.

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Latest issue of Extrême-Orient Extrême-Occident: Political Rhetoric in Early China

Some of you probably know the French journal Extrême-Orient Extrême-Occident. Its focus is broader than just philosophy but lots of issues might be of interest for readers of this blog. Many articles are in English.

http://www.puv-univ-paris8.org/collections/extreme-orient-extreme-occident-24-1.html

 

The latest issue is about political rhetoric in early China:

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