Category Archives: Confucianism

On-line Talk: Knapp, “The Birth of Popular Confucianism”

10th June 2021: Prof. Keith Knapp (The Citadel) presenting “The Birth of Popular Confucianism: Evidence from Dunhuang of the Creation of the Twenty-four Filial Exemplars.” 

The Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge holds a series of talks each term whose overall theme links with Dunhuang and/or the Silk Road. These take place via Zoom on Thursdays and require pre-registration. This week’s talk will begin at 5pm UK Time (BST), lasting an hour with time allocated afterwards for questions, debate, and discussion.

We welcome listeners from all fields who feel that these talks may help their own research or who are curious to know about the diverse topics covered. This seminar series is organised by Dr Imre Galambos with the generous support of the Glorisun Global Network and Dhammachai International Research.

To register for this week’s talk, please follow this link:https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIodOytrTkpEtBYrzlCaz3_OTikd3n4KMJk

If prompted to enter a passcode, please enter: Dunhuang

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New Journal: International Studies on Confucianism

A new journal, publishing both Chinese-language and English-language articles on Confucianism, has been established jointly by the International Confucian Association and Tsinghua University: 《国际儒学（中英文）》 or  International Studies on Confucianism. More information, including the Table of Contents of the first issue, is here.

2020 Dao Annual Best Essay Award

Winner: Shu-shan Lee, “ ‘What Did the Emperor Ever Say’—The Public Transcript of Confucian Political Obligation,” Dao 19. 2: 231-250

What is the Confucian conception of political obligation? While there is a widespread view
that it demands people’s absolute obedience to their rulers, there are also scholars arguing
that it includes people’s duty to correct rulers. In this award-winning essay, Shu-shan Lee
shows that the former lacks textual support, while the latter confuses Confucian scholar-
officials’ political duty with commoners’ political obligations. Instead, Lee argues,
convincingly, that imperial Confucian political obligation is a conditional theory of
paternalistic gratitude: common people’s obedience to their rulers is an expression of, and
thus is conditional upon, their rulers’ benevolent care for them. This ground-breaking
conception of Confucian political obligation results from Lee’s careful study, integrating
multi-faceted perspectives, philosophical and historical, theoretical and empirical, and
ancient and contemporary. It is the type of research that Dao aims to promote.

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Connolly Reviews Kim, Theorizing Confucian Virtue Politics

NDPR Sungmoon Kim Theorizing Confucian Virtue Politics: The Political Philosophy of Mencius and Xunzi (Reviewed by Tim Connolly, East Stroudsburg University)

“Confucian political theory offers a normative vision for contemporary societies that draws on concepts from thinkers in the Chinese philosophical tradition initiated by Confucius (551-479 BCE). Much of the recent work in this area is motivated by dialogue with mainstream Western political theory, focusing on questions of Confucianism’s compatibility with liberal democracy. Yet as Sungmoon Kim writes in the opening pages of the book, these attempts to establish dialogue have tended to look at general characteristics of the classical Confucian tradition, giving less attention to internal debates and disagreements within this tradition. Kim’s book is devoted to a reconstruction of…”

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EACP Online Event: A Digital Humanities Approach to Modern Confucianism

EACP Online Event: A Digital Humanities Approach to Modern Confucianism

Friday April 23, 2021, 2pm – 4pm (Central European Summer Time)

Ralph Weber, Philippe Major, Chan Yim Fong and Milan Matthiesen from the University of Basel will be giving an online talk on the topic “A Digital Humanities Approach to Modern Confucianism.”

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Neo-Confucianism Seminar Speaker: Yong Huang

The next session of the Columbia University Seminar on Neo-Confucian Studies will convene on Friday 4/9 from 7-8:30 pm EDT, over Zoom. Our speaker will be Yong Huang of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, who will be presenting a paper entitled “Virtue Ethicist of the Ideal Type: Aristotle or Zhu Xi?” The Zoom session can be accessed here. A reminder will be sent out on 4/8 as well. If you have questions, contact the rapporteur Nolan Bensen at neb2134@columbia.edu any time.

Sungmoon Kim at Seminar on Neo-Confucian Studies

The next session of the Columbia University Seminar on Neo-Confucian Studies will convene on Friday, March 5, from 7-8:30 pm EST, over Zoom. The speaker will be Professor Kim Sungmoon of the City University of Hong Kong. Prof. Kim’s title and abstract are below. The Zoom session can be accessed here. If you have questions, contact the new rapporteur at neb2134@columbia.edu any time.
(For more info see  below)

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NAPTS Bulletin: Confucianism and Tillich’s Protestant Principle

A paper by Lawrence Whitney about Paul Tillich’s “Protestant Principle” as it registers in Confucianism was published in the Bulletin of the North American Paul Tillich Society with responses by Bin Song and Heup Young Kim, and then Whitney’s response to the respondents. See here: https://www.academia.edu/45160997/Confucianism_and_Tillich_s_Protestant_Principle?source=swp_share

Research project on the Sociology of modern Confucian philosophy

We would like to bring to your attention a research project on the Sociology of modern Confucian philosophy based at the Institute for European Global Studies of the University of Basel (Switzerland). The research group, one of the largest specialized in the study of modern Confucianism outside East Asia, seeks to provide new perspectives on modern Confucianism by deploying sociological approaches for philosophical aims. The group is composed of Ralph Weber, Philippe Major, Yim Fong Chan, and Milan Matthiesen. More information about the research project can be found at the following address: https://europa.unibas.ch/en/research/european-global-knowledge-production/the-exterior-of-philosophy/.

The research group would like to hear from researchers who share similar interests. Those interested in sharing their research or in finding more about the project are invited to write to Philippe Major at philippe.major@unibas.ch.