Category Archives: Feminism

CFP: Women as Exemplary Persons 女君子 in the Ru (Confucian) Tradition

Call For Papers: “Women as Exemplary Persons 女君子 in the Ru (Confucian) Tradition”

Washington, D.C. March 8-10th, 2019

(Link to Conference Poster)

Keynotes:

  • Ann A. Pang-White (University of Scranton)
  • Anna Sun (Kenyon College)
  • Robert C. Neville (Boston University)

Confucianism is often criticized for being misogynistic and patriarchal in ways that go beyond similar critiques of other intellectual traditions by implying that Confucianism is inconceivable apart from these elements. Two more recent works begin to challenge this way of thinking by drawing on nuances and elaborating the contexts of traditional Confucian teachings on women: Ann A. Pang-White’s translation of The Confucian Four Books for Women (2018) and Robert C. Neville’s “Confucianism and the Feminist Revolution: Ritual Definition and the Social Construction of Gender Roles” in The Good is One, Its Manifestations Many (2016). Also, Anna Sun’s sociological work in progress on women in the global revival of Confucianism is quite promising in indicating a very positive trajectory for women in the tradition.

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New Handbook on Chinese Philosophy Methodologies

The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Chinese Philosophy Methodologies, edited by Sor-hoon Tan, is due to be published later this week. Details are here, and I’ll paste the very rich Table of Contents below. This is another in the Bloomsbury Research Handbooks in Asian Philosophy series, on which more is available here. So far, the only other title concerned with Chinese philosophy is The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Chinese Philosophy and Gender, edited by Ann-Pang White, which appeared earlier this year; see further below for its Table of Contents, and more details here. The series also contains several books focusing on the philosophies of India.

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CFP: Confucianism and Feminism

CALL FOR PAPERS AND PROPOSALS

Confucius and Feminism

Co-editors: Mathew A. Foust (Central Connecticut State University) & Sor-hoon Tan (National University of Singapore)

Chenyang Li’s path-breaking The Sage and the Second Sex (2000) challenged the traditionally received notion of Confucianism abetting the oppression of women in three ways.  With studies of a wide range of Confucians, including Mencius, Xunzi, and Li Zhi, and historical periods stretching from fifth century BCE to sixteenth century, contributions to the edited volume suggested that women’s situations in Chinese history were not as bad as has been supposed; that core Confucian teachings have had little to do with anything bad about their situations; and that Confucianism offers an ethical vision compatible with Feminism.

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