Northwest University Press (西北大学出版社) has published a Chinese translation of Mathew Foust’s book, Confucianism and American Philosophy (SUNY Press, 2017): [美] 马修·A. 福斯特著，张亲霞译，《儒学与美国哲学》，西北大学出版社，2026年7月，ISBN 9787560460895. More information from Douban is available here.
Today’s podcast is with John J. Park, associate professor of philosophy at California State University-Sacramento, on his new book Beyond Democracy, Toward Meritocracy (Oxford University Press, 2026).
Listen to the podcast: https://youtu.be/3e2IF6iXXrQ
Although the ancient Chinese text Laozi–also known as the Daodejing–is highly popular worldwide, few Anglophone readers are familiar with the history of how the Chinese themselves have interpreted it. This volume aims to introduce students and general readers to the two earliest surviving commentaries on the Laozi, through translations that are approachable for non-specialists and can be read on their own. These two commentaries, the “Jie Lao” (Explaining the Laozi) and “Yu Lao” (Illustrating the Laozi), appear as two chapters in the book Han Feizi, traditionally dated to the 3rd century BCE. They are interesting not only for showing how at least one very early reader understood the Laozi, but also for what they may reveal about the state of the Laozi itself at that time, before it achieved the form of the text that is so famous nowadays. The book also includes original essays that explore the commentaries’ relation to the rest of the Han Feizi, compare and contrast them with other Laozi commentaries, and analyze their place in the larger history of Chinese commentarial writing. The table of contents is below the fold.
How China Shaped the Enlightenment: A Transcultural History of Modern Thought, Edited By Shuchen Xiang, Martin Powers, has been published by Routledge. See here and below.
A symposium on Michael Beaney’s book The Joy of Chinese Philosophy (see here) has been published in the British Journal for the History of Philosophy:
Cambridge has published Eirik Harris’s new book, Meritocracy in Early Chinese Political Thought, in its Elements series. The book can be accessed here, and is free to download until June 3. For a summary, see below.
Sungmoon Kim’s A Confucian Theory of Power has been published by Manchester University Press (https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526182661/). The book contains a lead essay by Kim, responses from several theorists, and Kim’s replies.
Jiani Fan (范佳妮) has published a new book: 山水风景之间——中西诗画中的风景再现与美学 / Between Shanshui and Landscape: Toward a Comparative Aesthetics of Chinese and Western Poetry and Visual Arts (Beijing: SDX Joint Publishing Company (生活·读书·新知三联书店), April 2026).
The book focuses on Ancient Greek, Roman, Chinese, and modern French poetry and visual arts, and engages with aesthetic concepts such as Stimmung (mood/attunement), the Sublime, Ruins, and Emptiness (Vide), as well as their Chinese counterparts. A comparative journey across traditions and media.
Philip J. Ivanhoe and Hwa Yeong Wang’s collection of translations of Korean Confucian thinkers Readings in Korean Confucian Philosophy (Hackett, 2026) has been published recently. Continue reading →
