One-year position in Early China at Arizona

VISITING ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, EARLY CHINA.  The Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Arizona invites qualified applicants to apply for a one-year position as a Visiting Assistant Professor in the field of early China for the academic year 2012-2013. The appointment is to begin in Fall 2012. Please see complete job announcement and apply at: http://www.uacareertrack.com/applicants/Central?quickFind=203975

(Steve adds: The more detailed announcement specifies that “courses will be in the field of early China that include Chinese culture, society, thought, Confucianism and Taoism.”)

Some Thoughts on the Difficulty of Being a Confucian Today

In memoriam Chen Cheng-po…

Yesterday we had a day off in Taiwan and I spent a rainy afternoon visiting the 2-28 Memorial Museum in downtown Taipei. I have been there before, but this time it was quite different, especially since I had the chance to look at some new documents. In particular the biography of one person was deeply moving: the Taiwanese painter Chen Cheng-po 陳澄波 (also known as Chin To-Ha). He was born in 1895 in Chia-Yi, studied arts in Tokyo and went on to become a famous painter in Taiwan and the broader Chinese-speaking world (especially oil paintings). After the liberation of Taiwan from the Japanese occupation, he got involved into politics and was elected into the local parliament at Chia-Yi. After the 2-28 Incident, he tried to negotiate between the Guomindang and the local population. However, he was executed without any particular reason in broad daylight on March 25th of 1947.

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Summer Residential Institute in Japanese/Chinese Comparative Philosophy

The University of Hawaii and the University of Tokyo are organizing this three-week institute (July 31 – August 17, 2012). Roger Ames is organizing and directing the program which also involves several of the University of Tokyo’s most popular teachers. The Institute is a combination of thematic lectures and close readings of core texts in Chinese and Japanese philosophy. The application deadline is tomorrow, March 1, 2012; if you are interested but cannot make that deadline, contact Roger Ames at RTAmes@hawaii.edu.

For more information see:  http://www.eastwestcenter.org/node/21684 and scroll down to “University of Tokyo-University of Hawaii Summer Residential Institute in Comparative Philosophy.”

Role Ethics and Criticism

In a previous post, I sketched the two major premises on which Roger Ames and Henry Rosemont rely in their argument that we should attribute “Confucian role ethics” to the Analects and other early Confucian texts. Here, I’d like to consider one potential objection to Confucian role ethics, both as a plausible moral theory in its own right, and as a theory that fits with the texts. The Analects clearly sees the need for critical evaluation of the ways that roles are inhabited by particular people. Does “Confucian role ethics” provide adequate critical purchase for such assessment? Continue reading →

NDPR Review of Amy Olbering's Moral Exemplars in the Analects

NDRP has just published a very nice, charitable-and-yet-challenging review of Amy Olberding’s recent book, Moral Exemplars in the Analects: The Good Person is That. Myeong-seok Kim lauds the subtle insight that Olberding is able to extract from her attention to the Analects‘s “narrative depictions of Confucius in diverse circumstances,” while raising questions about her framework of “exemplarism.” Highly recommended!

On Confucian Role Ethics

I have recently been at work on an essay called “The Analects and Moral Theory,” one part of which has been examining the idea of “Confucian role ethics,” as recently articulated by Roger Ames and Henry Rosemont. I thought it might be productive to extract some of my analysis here for discussion. In this post I look at the two key premises supporting Confucian role ethics; if folks are interested, in a subsequent post or two I have a couple different objections to the view that may be worth discussion. Continue reading →

Popular Daoism

Mark Saltveit, professional comedian and author, guest-posted last year on comedy and Daoism. Subsequently, he published his thoughts on that topic with MeFiMag (available for download). Mark is back with some questions that he has about popular Daoism, to get some discussion and opinion from members of our forum. He plans to publish an article about this topic as well (note Mark’s comments below about seeking permission to quote or cite from those who comment in this forum). Please address all comments or questions directly to Mark.

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Hello.  I’m working on a feature article (for an intelligent general audience) about criticism of popular Daoist authors (particularly Ursula K. Le Guin and Benjamin Hoff) by certain academics of Eastern religion who are centered around the University of San Diego and the Center for Daoist Studies (http://www.daoistcenter.org/homepage.html).

Some of this criticism seems rather polemical, rooted in an anti-Orientalist critique of the concept of Philosophical Daoism as a Western (and arguably Protestant) gloss. (I’m using the term “Culturalists” as shorthand for this group, and positing Michael Saso as its founder.)  Russell Kirkland calls Le Guin a “fraud” and Louis Komjathy won’t even write “Philosophical Daoism” without applying strikethrough to the words to show his disapproval. Kirkland goes so far as to argue that the Daodejing itself distorts Daoism, “sanitized” by its 3rd Century BCE redactor in a “marketing ploy” designed to strip it of “cultural baggage” and make it more presentable to Northern Chinese courts.  Continue reading →

CFP: Confucian Traditions Group of AAR

The Confucian Traditions Group will sponsor panels for the 2012 annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion, which will take place in Chicago from November 17-20. This Group invites proposals concerning any aspect of Confucianism from any geographical area. Topics of particular interest this coming year are:

  • Confucianism and tradition — Confucianism as a conservative force or a source of change
  • Confucian ritual interaction with other traditions
  • Confucian self-cultivation
  • Confucianism and the Confucius Institutes
  • “Confucian Fever” — grass-roots Confucianism
  • Unintended consequences of Confucian discourse and institutions

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Call for Abstracts for conference on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy

Call for Abstracts: FORDHAM UNIVERSITY hosts an International Conference on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy

The 30th annual joint meeting of the Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy (SAGP) with the Society for the Study of Islamic Philosophy (SSIPS)

Friday, October 19 – Sunday, October 21, 2012
Fordham University, Lincoln Center, 113 W. 60th St. New York, NY10023
Including the annual meetings of scholarly societies in the history of ancient, medieval, and Asian philosophy Continue reading →