Just a few points about The Philosophical Gourmet Report’s (PGR’s) rankings of PhD programs in Chinese Philosophy, followed by some advice to prospective graduate students in Chinese philosophy.
Category Archives: Graduate study
Chinese Philosophy MA Program at Beijing Normal University
The MA Chinese Philosophy program at Beijing Normal University (English taught) will be offered in the spring of 2025. The philosophy discipline at Beijing Normal University ranks among the top 3 in China, with the MA program gaining widespread recognition both domestically and internationally. A detailed overview of the program is provided in this attached brochure. The application deadline for admission is March 10th, 2025. Additional information and application guidelines can be accessed on the official BNU admission website.
Updates to Graduate Program listing
Here at the blog we do our best to keep the page dedicated to Graduate Programs in Chinese Philosophy up-to-date, including listing recent changes near the top of that page. Significant recent updates include noting Chris Fraser’s move to the University of Hong Kong, adding the University of Warwick (and Curie Virág), and noting Chenyang Li’s retirement from Nanyang Technological University. Please leave a comment or email me directly with any suggestions or updates!
Luce/ACLS Program in China Studies: 2024-25 Fellowship and Grant Competitions
The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) invites scholars seeking funds for research and writing to apply for Luce/ACLS Program in China Studies fellowships and grants. The following three fellowships are offered: flexible, short-term fellowships, long-term research fellowships, and travel grants.
Updates to Graduate Programs page
I have recently added Lancaster University (and Philippe Major) and made a few other adjustments to the Graduate Programs page. If you notice any further changes that should be made, please let me know!
Fellowships for Graduate Study in China
A message regarding the China Study Program — a fellowship program for graduate students:
Since 2013, the “China Study Program” (CSP), sponsored by the Center for Language Education and Cooperation, has supported more than 900 international students in areas of humanities and social sciences with their doctoral studies and research in China. As the Secretariat of the Expert Committee of the China Studies Program based at the Renmin University of China, we are writing to introduce the fellowship program to you. We would be grateful if you circulate the letter or encourage students to apply.
CSP provides individualized training programs for each candidate and offers generous fellowships to cover the cost of research, fieldwork, and living expenses in China. By offering opportunities for collaboration with prestigious professors in 18 key universities in China, this program brings in-depth learning and research opportunities. Ph.D. candidates registered in an overseas university are eligible to apply for a “Joint Research Ph.D. Fellowship,” and those who have obtained a master’s degree and are interested in pursuing a Ph.D. degree in China may apply for the “Ph.D. Program in China.”
The application for the 2024 CSP Fellowship is now open and will remain so until Feb 28, 2024. Please visit this website for detailed information: http://www.chinese.cn/page/#/pcpage/csp
We would appreciate it if you circulate this information among your students or recommend students to us. If you have any questions, please contact us via email at hantui@ruc.edu.cn.
I wish you a fruitful spring term!
Sincerely,
Dr. Jing (Cathy) Zhang
Deputy Director
Secretariat of Expert Committee of China Studies Program
Institute for the Promotion of Chinese Language and Culture
Renmin University of China
ADD: Room 516, Guo Xue Guan, Renmin University of China
59 Zhong-guan-cun Street, Beijing, 100872, P. R. China
Tel: 86-10-62513770; 86-10-15120008891
Institute for the Promotion of Chinese Language and Culture
School of Chinese Studies and Cultural Exchange
Renmin University of China
MA Program: Renmin University
Renmin University of China in Being is happy to call for application to their two-year MA program in Chinese Philosophy, Religion and Culture (CPRC) at the School of Philosophy. All courses in the CPRC program are taught in English. It offers students an excellent opportunity to study Chinese philosophy and religion while living in China. Currently there are still scholarships available for students. The application period runs from November 15th, 2023 to April 30th, 2024. Interested students can contact Prof. Jifen Li or Prof. Dennis Schiling. Please read below for more information about the program.
Funded Graduate Study Opportunity
The Traditional China Chair at the Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies of the University of Zurich is soliciting applications for a Ph.D. position in Classical Sinology (80 % FTE). Work towards the Ph.D. will be carried out under the auspices of the SNSF project “Literary Forms and Epistemic Goals in Early Chinese Texts” (Principal Investigator: Dr. R. Suter). The doctoral thesis will be jointly supervised by Prof. W. Behr and Dr. Suter. See here for more information.
“Non-Western” tenure-track jobs in philosophy
Back in April, Marcus Arvan put out this blog post analyzing which specializations were listed in the 2021-22 jobs posted at PhilJobs. He concludes that “Non-Western Philosophy” was the requested specialization in 5.8% of tenure-track jobs in this past year, which is pretty stable over the past several years. Note that if a job lists two specializations, then that counts as 0.5 of a job for each, and so on for even more potential specializations. He adds that another 6% of the tenure track jobs list Non-Western as a desired teaching competence (“area of competence”). We don’t have numbers ready-to-hand for the number of job seekers with one or another variety of “Non-Western” as an AOC, but I suspect that the ratio of seekers to jobs in this area compares favorably to most other areas of specialization. Which is not to say that getting a job in philosophy is ever easy!
Chinese philosophy in the 2021-2022 Philosophical Gourmet Report
Once every few years, the Philosophical Gourmet Report publishes rankings of PhD programs in philosophy in the English-speaking world. It ranks programs “overall” and by areas of specialization. As one would hope for a report that aspires to be comprehensive and describe the current state of the field, one of those areas of specialization is Chinese philosophy.
You can find a general description of the methodology of the report here. As the member of the advisory board who took the lead in managing the Chinese philosophy area, and who wrote to the other assessors of Chinese philosophy to convene some joint deliberations about the process, I wanted to say a bit more about how we handled the Chinese philosophy section. Continue reading →
