Category Archives: Graduate study

Query about Finances of Graduate Education in East Asia

Blog regular Joshua Harwood writes:

I am interested in the financial details of graduate programs in Chinese philosophy, in East Asia. Taiwan (where I am now) offers some scholarship assistance for those who enroll in Chinese graduate programs, which includes living stipends, etc., but I know that such assistance differs by major, and the details of the program are not crystal-clear to me.

I’ve saved some money, but doubt that I’ll ever meet the tuition demands of most US universities, and so I decided long ago that I would prefer to study in an East Asian graduate program. I’m probably nearing the time to begin my admissions process, and I would appreciate any helpful resources (in Chinese or English) which might help me focus my decisions.

If it helps, my primary interests in Chinese philosophy are Yang Zhu, pre-Han Chinese metaethics, and 命. For non-Chinese-specific topics, I’m most interested in formal logic, especially the connection of formal languages to natural languages, and mathematical logic.

I’m sure we’d all benefit from any thoughts or advice.

New Graduate Program at Nanyang

Nanyang Technological University of Singapore has launched a philosophy graduate program (MA and PhD), with an emphasis on Asian and comparative philosophy. The university also offers very generous financial aid packages (for 12 months a year). More information can be found at the website: http://philosophy.hss.ntu.edu.sg/Pages/OurProgramme.aspx .

For more information, you may also contact Prof. Chenyang Li directly at: cyli@ntu.edu.sg.

We are not last…

Last week, Brian Leiter hosted a poll of readers of his blog, asking “What areas are most important for a strong PhD program in philosophy?” The results are discussed here, but one has to go to the full listing to see anything related to Chinese or comparative philosophy. “History of Non-Western Philosophy” came in 26th out of 27. I suppose that we can hope for different results one day in the future!

New doctoral program in Chinese Thought at Indiana

With applications for graduate programs due in the next couple of months I thought I’d briefly announce the development of a new program in Chinese thought at Indiana University. I’ve posted a brief description below, but more information can be found at this website (http://www.indiana.edu/~relstud/grad/tracks.shtml#chinesethought). With two faculty in the department working on Confucian thought, and good support from strong departments of Philosophy and East Asian Languages and Cultures, we hope to provide a solid option for those looking to do graduate work in Chinese philosophy within the context of a religious studies department.

Description:
This field trains students to produce original research on Chinese philosophical and religious thought. It also provides students with the skills and knowledge necessary to teach effectively about the religious traditions of East Asia. Students in this field learn to interpret the texts of early China in light of the various disciplines involved in the comparative study of religion, including philosophy, history, philology, and anthropology. While students will gain a broad knowledge of Chinese texts, the current focus of this field is the early period of Confucianism (roughly the 6th century BCE through the 3rd century CE). However, concentrating on another time period is possible, depending on previous student training.

PhD Fellowship in Classical Chinese Studies at Cambridge

From Prof. Roel Sterckx: The Department of East Asian Studies offers funding for one PhD fellowship to start in October 2012. The value of the scholarship will be £15,000 per year for a maximum of 3 years. This will cover university composition and college fees at UK/EU rate plus a significant part towards maintenance. For details, see the website of the Board of Graduate Studies. Continue reading →

Study Chinese Philosophy in English at Fudan

Prof. BAI Tongdong would like to announce an exciting new opportunity to study Chinese philosophy, in English (though also with Chinese language courses), at Fudan University in Shanghai. Note that there is some substantial financial assistance available. There are both 2-year MA and 1-year non-degree options. Sounds terrific! Continue reading →

Summer Project: Chinese Philosophy M.A. and Ph.D. Program Non-Rankings

[I’m bringing this up to the front for those people who had intended to add–but let slip during the summer–what they know about the programs they are or have been affiliated with. I’m still compiling more information behind the scenes and will try to have a relatively complete draft of programs by end of September. You can send me attachments of documents or confidential (or otherwise sensitive information) via email; or you may simply post your comments–questions too!–on this string.]

I thought it would be a useful and beneficial service to the academic study of Chinese philosophy for this blog to offer a non-ranked informational list of Ph.D. and M.A. programs (or the relevant graduate equivalents) that offer training to research and teach Chinese philosophy.

To make the list as useful and non-political as possible, I propose—at least—the following protocols:

Information and/or evaluation will be provided in two ways (both moderated and edited for blog presentation, by me):

1. By people who are directly or indirectly involved in administering those programs. They may provide any sort of information they see fit, promotional or otherwise, so long as it does not involve ranking of their programs relative to other programs. These people will not be anonymous.

2. By people who have experienced those programs as participants. These people may be granted blog-anonymity if they have a good rationale for it, though they cannot be anonymous to me. I’m not involved in administrating any M.A. or Ph.D. program, nor do I have any stake in raising or lowering the reputation of any particular one, so I think I can have this type of moderation-control without conflict of interests.

I’d like to generate a good deal of information over the Summer before posting the results on this blog, in the Fall when it will be most useful for those applying to programs.

I welcome any suggestions or additions in terms of the type of information I should try to collect and include. You can simply comment in response to this post or send me an email.

I’ll move this post up to the front from time to time to get more feedback and to try to get the word out about the information we need. I’ll try to post a “results” page in the Fall, around mid-September.

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This is really a follow-up to the discussion I initiated a couple of years ago on Brian Leiter’s Leiter Reports blog about the state of Chinese Philosophy training in the English-speaking world.

Some issues that came up in that discussion perhaps worth revisiting on this post’s comment string, are:

  • considerations relevant to choosing between Philosophy programs and Asian Studies, Asian Literature, or Asian History programs;
  • considerations relevant to choosing between programs in the U.S., Canada, Australia and those in Asia (principally, in Hong Kong, Singapore, China (PRC), or Taiwan (ROC)–perhaps in other countries as well? let me know!);
  • considerations relevant to choosing and getting a degree from a program that does not actually have a specialist in Chinese philosophy, but working-at-a-distance with specialists at other institutions.

Please feel free to comment (in whatever capacity this matters to you)!