Author Archives: Kai Marchal

2022 SEA International Young Scholars Conference

Dear colleagues,

The Research Center for Chinese Cultural Subjectivity in Taiwan (CCS) will be hosting the 2nd Sinophone Studies in Europe and the Americas (SEA) International Young Scholars Conference in March 2022 at National Chengchi University, Taiwan. We invite post-doctoral researcher, Ph. D. candidate, doctoral or master’s degree student in all related fields to discuss different research approaches with their Taiwanese counterparts.

The goal of the SEA 2022 conference is to re-think existing paradigms in fields and sub-fields like Asian Studies, Sinology, Transcultural Studies, Religion Studies, Applied Ethics, Comparative Literature and Philosophy, History of Thought, Global History, Digital Humanities, etc. One central question that we want to explore is how to understand the idea of (geographic, linguistic, conceptual) “border” in the global present, and how different Sinophone perspectives interrogate this and other related ideas, in particular with regard to the following topics:

  1. Categories and Boundaries in Transcultural Perspective.
  2. Inclusivity and Demarcation in Sinophone Religions.
  3. Sinophone Studies in Practical Horizon.

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Workshop on Mou Zongsan in Taipei: June 16, 2020

Dear colleagues,

hereby I would like to notify you of a workshop on “Mou Zongsan and Contemporary Philosophy” taking place this tuesday (June 16) at National Chengchi University in Taipei. The aim of this workshop is to re-think the legacy of one of the most important thinkers in the Chinese-speaking world in the 20th century, Mou Zongsan (1909-1995). In our global present, it is more urgent than ever to critically assess non-Western intellectual traditions and to understand better whether (and if so, how) these traditions can be defended philosophically effectively without falling into the traps of mere apologetics or cultural nationalism. The speakers will focus on central philosophical issues in Mou’s thinking, f.ex. “intellectual intuition”, “self-consciousness”, and “experience” and their potential relevance for contemporary philosophy.

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A good point against the “meritocracy myth” (and lots of anger)

Here is a sharp analysis of the recent crisis in China which, I guess, will interest many of you. The author writes: “If anything, Wuhan bankrupted the meritocracy myth for many people who once believed that the country was largely run by no-nonsense, result-oriented technocrats.” One starts wondering when exactly those scholars who have been praising China’s so called “meritocracy” as superior to (Western) liberal democracies will start taking (social and political) reality into account. Does it make sense to say that this still is merely a bad reality contradicting a normative ideal?!

2019 SEA International Young Scholars Conference in Taipei

Dear colleagues,

The following announcement might be of interest to some readers of “Warp, Weft, and Way”. We encourage younger scholars in fields like sinology, religious studies, cultural studies and philosophy to apply. The conference will be an excellent opportunity to meet distinguished scholars from Taiwan, Hongkong and other Sinophone societies and to interact with young scholars from around the globe.

Kai

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Conference in Taipei: “Phenomenology and Chinese Philosophy” (March 18-20)

Dear colleagues,

this is to inform you about the international conference “Selfhood, Otherness, and Cultivation. Phenomenology and Chinese Philosophy” (March 18-20, at National Chengchi University in Taipei). You can still register on our website which also contains many helpful information (list of speakers, abstracts, etc.). The conference is co-hosted by the philosophy department and the interdisciplinary “Research Center on Chinese Cultural Subjectivity in Taiwan” at National Chengchi University. Our guest of honor is Dan Zahavi (Kopenhagen/Oxford) who, besides participating in our conference, will also give a series of lectures next week (see here).

Cordially,
Kai Marchal

 

 

 

Post-doctoral Fellow Positions in Taiwan

Dear colleagues:

Hereby I’d like to draw your attention to the following announcement by the Research Center for Chinese Cultural Subjectivity, National Chengchi University, Taipei (Taiwan). If you have any further question, you can write to cca@nccu.edu.tw (or just send me a message: I am one of the four co-directors of this center). Please also note the tight dead-line.

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Ernst Tugendhat and Daoism: Workshop in Taipei

On May 7 and 9, the philosophy department of NCCU in Taipei organizes a workshop on the German philosopher Ernst Tugendhat’s book “Egocentricity and Mysticism” (Columbia UP, 2016). One of its translators, Mario Wenning, will discuss with us the philosophical relevance of Tugendhat’s ideas, esp. his interpretation of Daoist and Buddhist teachings. If you happen to be in Taipei and are interested in the topic, please feel free to join our discussion. For all other details see the abstract in Chinese (below).

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Confucian Revival versus Feminist Awakening

I often have trouble understanding the ease with which some Western observers/scholars living outside of Chinese-speaking societies try to merge modern feminist ideas with traditional Chinese culture, especially Confucian discourses. From a more embedded perspective, these attempts often look oversimplifying, or simply unconvincing. Again and again, social reality in China follows its own laws, not those imagined by observers outside of China.

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