Oxford University Press is currently running a marketing campaign focused on many of its titles in East Asian Philosophy; chapters from each volume are available for free download through the end of June. Topics covered include classical Daoism, Zen lessons from nature, the history of Confucianism, harmony through diversity in the Huainanzi, neglected texts, and more. See here for the details.
I have just learned that Donald J. Munro, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy and Chinese at the University of Michigan, has passed away. Don was a wonderful human being: caring and insightful mentor to many of us; pioneering scholar and teacher; as well as loving father and husband. He will be greatly missed.
Meiner, a renowned philosophy publisher from Hamburg, has established a new series of bilingual editions of source texts in Chinese philosophy in both Chinese and German. For the series see: https://meiner.de/monographien-reihen/sino-philosophica.html
The first volume of the series is a translation by Iso Kern of a selection of the correspondence between Wang Yangming, Ouyang De and Luo Qinshun on the basis of ethical action. For this new publication see:
https://meiner.de/monographien-reihen/sino-philosophica/kontroversen-uber-die-grundlagen-ethischen-handelns.html
The Center for East Asian and Comparative Philosophy at the City University of Hong Kong is hosting an on-line book symposium on Roy Tseng’s recent book, Confucian Liberalism. Speakers include Loubna El Amine, Dongxian Jiang, Sungmoon Kim, and myself, as well as responses from Roy. We begin at 9:00am Hong Kong time on June 8, which is 9:00pm EST on Wednesday evening, June 7. Details are on the poster here.
George Israel published a lovely on-line essay titled “The Trouble with Wang Yangming” a little over a year ago, but it remains highly relevant. If you are interested in all the enthusiasm about Wang in the contemporary PRC, or about Wang more generally, this is essential reading.
Daniel Bell (Law, University of Hong Kong) has three recent publications that may be of interest to blog readers:
The Dean of Shandong: Confessions of a Minor Bureaucrat at a Chinese University (Princeton University Press, March 2023) (https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691247120/the-dean-of-shandong)
Special issue of The China Review on Chinese identity. Here is the table of contents and introduction free online: https://cup.cuhk.edu.hk/image/catalog/journal/jpreview/CR23.2__1-11.pdf
Co-edited with Amitav Acharya, Rajeev Bhargava, Yan Xuetong. Bridging Two Worlds: Comparing Classical Political Thought and Statecraft in India and China (University of California Press, Jan. 2023). Free online version available here:
https://luminosoa.org/site/books/e/10.1525/luminos.135/
Sungmoon Kim’s new book Confucian Constitutionalism: Dignity, Rights, and Democracy has just been published by Oxford University Press; for more information, see here.
The U.S.-China Research Group on Cosmopolitanism consists of nine scholars from the United States and the Chinese cultural sphere who are pursuing a structured exploration of theoretical and practical problems related to cosmopolitanism. In particular, we are looking to draw upon Chinese philosophical traditions in order to explore alternative understandings of the nature and future of cosmopolitanism. Each member of the group has composed a short reflection describing her or his initial thoughts on the topic, which are presented in a blog at the bottom of our web page:
https://uschinadialogue.georgetown.edu/topics/research-group-cosmopolitanism
Members have further developed their short reflections into more substantial accounts and will present these at a meeting at the University of Hong Kong on 5-6 May 2023. These will be made available once they have been further revised and refined.
Attached here find information concerning the 4th “Chinese Culture Studies Program for Global Young Scholar 2023” (The 8th BNU Philosophy Summer School) as well as its application form. To participate one must have a BA and be interested in Chinese philosophy or culture more generally. 40 young scholars will be admitted, and the brochure also discusses scholarships to cover travel and other expenses. Note that the deadline for applying is very soon (April 26)!
Announcement of 2022 Dao Annual Best Essay Award
Dao established “The Annual Best Essay Award” in 2007. In addition to a certificate of achievement, the award comes along with a prize of US$1,000. The award winners will be noted in the website of the journal as well as the website of Springer, the publisher of the journal. The award ceremony is held each year at the American Philosophical Association Annual Meeting (Eastern Division) in early January, where a special panel on the theme of the award-winning essay is held. The critical comments and the author’s responses to them presented at the panel, after review and revision, will be published in the last issue of Dao each year.
