Professor Huang Yong (Fudan) @UNSW Sydney

Professor Huang Yong will be spending a few days at UNSW Sydney, Australia, in August, delivering a reading masterclass as well as a talk.

Details as follows:

1. READING MASTERCLASS

NB: Registration Required

Wednesday 12 August 2026

10:00am-4:00pm (Australian Eastern Standard Time; UTC/GMT +10:00)

A close reading and discussion of two texts from A Source Book of Chinese Philosophy (Wing-tsit Chan, Princeton University Press): [*contact the Organiser below for pdf’s]

  1. Chapter 8, “The Mystical Way of Chuang Tzu”
  2. Chapter 35, “Dynamic Idealism in Wang Yangming”

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CFP: 25th ISCP Conference

On behalf of the International Society for Chinese Philosophy (ISCP) and the Department of Philosophy, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), we are pleased to invite submissions for the 25th International Conference of the International Society for Chinese Philosophy (ISCP), to be held at The Chinese University of Hong Kong on June 22-25, 2027.

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CFP: 4th Carolina Conference on Chinese Thought

Call for Proposals: 4TH CAROLINA CONFERENCE ON CHINESE THOUGHT

Friday, April 2 – Saturday, April 3, 2027, CONVERSE UNIVERSITY, Spartanburg, SC

The Carolina Conference on Chinese Thought (CCCT) is a regionally-based site for exchange and connection among those interested in Chinese thought, broadly construed. We invite scholars and graduate students to discuss their work on Chinese thought, drawing from any disciplinary perspective. Presentations focusing on research, pedagogy, and other engagements with Chinese thought are welcome. Works-in-progress are especially encouraged, with the CCCT being a collegial atmosphere for collaboration. All things otherwise equal, proposals from scholars and graduate students based in the Carolinas and the U.S. Southeast region will be given preference for selection.

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PHP / RSS issues

Several readers have reached out to me to let me know that the line of text (“Warning: trim() expects at least 1 parameter…”) appearing at the top of the page is interfering with their usual RSS feed for the blog. I am sorry about that! I believe the reason it’s there is that the site’s background PHP needs to be upgraded, but every time I have tried that, even after turning all plugins off, the site reports a “fatal error” and won’t load at all.

I am sharing this because if there is anyone out there who appreciates this blog and has more technical expertise than me, maybe you can help! Please reach out to me directly (sangle -at- wesleyan.edu) if appropriate. Thanks!

Episode 36 of “This Is the Way”: Zhuangzi’s Happy Fish Debate

In this episode, we take up one of the most puzzling and fascinating passages in the Zhuangzi: the “happy fish debate” between Zhuangzi and Huizi. Can Zhuangzi really know that the fish are happy if he is not a fish? Along the way, we explore skepticism, language, animal minds, and the ordinary but surprisingly sophisticated ways we recognize joy in other living things. Continue reading →