Category Archives: Lecture

Shogimen lecture: Metaphor Analysis and Comparative History of Political Thought

Jun-Hyeok KWAK writes:

The 20th Comparative Philosophy Workshop sponsored by Sun Yat-sen University will be held virtually at 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM (Beijing Time), 3rd December (Friday), 2021.

Topic: “Metaphor Analysis and Comprative History of Political Thought”
Speaker: Takashi SHOGIMEN (Professor of History, University of Otago)
Moderator: Jun-Hyeok KWAK (Professor of Philosophy (Zhuhai), Sun Yat-sen University)

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On-line Lecture: Jenco: The Ming-Qing Transition as a Philosophical Problem

Leigh Jenco: The Ming-Qing Transition as a Philosophical Problem

Time: Dec 3, 2021 04:00 PM (German time); register here.

Description: The transition from the Ming dynasty to the Qing dynasty was not experienced as a sharp break for those who lived through it, but it has come to stand in the minds of later Chinese literati as nothing less than an existential crisis for Chinese identity—both driving and driven by a shift in intellectual perspective that emerged in the early years of Qing consolidation. Many educated literati retrospectively blamed the fall of the Ming on the abstruse philosophizing that preoccupied followers of Wang Yangming, a sixteenth-century statesman, frontier general and philosopher whose rejection of state-sponsored Confucian orthodoxy rode a wave of interest in metaphysical speculation about the sources of moral knowledge. In its place—just as the government policy adapted from an inward-looking, Han-dominated state to a cosmopolitan, expansionist inner Asian empire—seventeenth- and eighteenth-century literati turned their attention to the historical and philological verification of classic texts, inaugurating the “evidential learning” (kaozheng) that twentieth-century Chinese reformers would see as proof of an indigenous, modern “scientific spirit.” In this paper I argue that such divisions obscure from view the extent to which the Manchu victory and the territorial consolidation that followed continued the strong parallels that marked both Chinese and European societies in early modernity. There are thus important philosophical consequences for periodizing the Chinese early modern period as an abrupt transition from “Ming to Qing” or “philosophy to philology”. I use my current research to offer examples of these consequences. Specifically, I argue that characterizing this time period in terms of a rupture between dynasties, rather than as a more general epoch of early modernity, leaves us unable to assess philosophically the ways in which ideas and practices thematized by scholars of Yangming learning enabled particular kinds of discourse about human difference to take shape.

Virtual lecture: Michael Hunter, “The Classic of Poetry at the Foundations of Classical Chinese Philosophy,”

The Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Arizona is pleased to announce the first talk of the semester in its EAS Colloquium series:

Oct. 6, at 5:00 pm PST (8 pm Eastern Time) via Zoom
The Classic of Poetry at the Foundations of Classical Chinese Philosophy

Michael Hunter, Yale University

Abstract: The standard narrative of ancient Chinese thought for the last hundred years or so has one very big blindspot: poetry, and especially the Classic of Poetry (Shijing 詩經), which was by far the most widely known and influential corpus of the Warring States period. Drawing on material from his recently published book (The Poetics of Early Chinese Thought: How the Shijing Shaped the Chinese Philosophical Tradition; Columbia UP), Prof. Hunter will present his reading of the ideology of the Classic of Poetry and show how that ideology reverberates throughout the early textual record.

Bio: Prof. Hunter is an associate professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale University. His first book, entitled Confucius Beyond the Analects, argues that extant Confucius material from the early period is much bigger, more dynamic, and more interesting than what the early imperial Analects suggests.

Updated Zoom link: https://arizona.zoom.us/j/86995685926

Questions? Email: hengdu@email.arizona.edu

Columbia Neo-Confucianism Seminar: Lederman on Wang Yangming

The next session of the Columbia University Seminar on Neo-Confucian Studies will convene on Thursday 9/23 from 7-8:30 pm EST, over Zoom.

Our speaker will be Professor Harvey Lederman of Princeton, who will be presenting his forthcoming paper The Introspective Model of Genuine Knowledge in Wang Yangming. Professor Lederman’s draft looks very well-formatted to me, but he says that he will have one more round of copyediting on it, and welcomes typographical comments.

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On-line Talk: Jenco, “Neo-Confucianism Beyond Moral Philosophy”

From Prof. Jun-Hyeok KWAK (郭峻赫) of Sun Yat-sen University:
We are pleased to announce the 19th Comparative Philosophy Workshop which will be held virtually at 16:00 PM to 18:00 PM (Beijing Time), 30th September (Thursday), 2021.
Due to the pandemic across the world, we will have a virtual (on-line) meeting. Should you wish to join the meeting, please email to the workshop coordinator to get the meeting password. We are going to use Tencent Voov Meeting, and any video recording of this meeting is prohibited.
At the 19th Political Philosophy Workshop, Leigh JENCO (LSE) will give a talk, “Neo-Confucianism Beyond Moral Philosophy: Chen Di’s Historical Phonology”

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On-line lecture: Confucianism and the Political Theory of the Business Corporation

Date: 17 September 2021 (Friday)

Time: 16:00 (HKT)

Venue: Online (This talk will be held via Zoom.)

Participants: Chi Kwok, Lingnan University; Sungmoon Kim, City University of Hong Kong

Registration is required. Please email: joogangl@gmail.com

Click here to view flyer.

Abstract: Despite the burgeoning literature in contemporary Confucian political theory, little effort has been devoted to the exploration of the implications of Confucianism to economic justice. Among the few exceptions, Chan (2013) argues that Confucianism would require a sufficientarian, yet inegalitarian, distributions of economic resources; Kim (2019) suggests that Confucianism could offer an account of the political economy of harmony where distributive values of equality, need, and merit “could have their own place”. Although these are important contributions, these works’ focal point is on developing a general outlook and guiding principles of a Confucian moral economy. This paper argues that the modern relevance of a theory of moral economy depends to a significant degree on whether it could offer an attractive normative account to the legally privileged economic agent, business corporation, which enjoys legal rights such as legal personality, limited liability, asset shielding that are unavailable to other market actors. The paper attempts to build a bridge between contemporary Confucian political theory and political theory of the business corporation for two purposes. First, it offers a better ontological account of the business corporation for Confucian political theory to intervene in debates about the business corporation. Second, it also offers alternative moral resources to develop a political theory of the business corporation beyond the usual liberal democratic framework in the literature.

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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The Analects of Confucius – Seminar Series (Oxford)

Philiminality Oxford is delighted to announce an upcoming series of talks (online) on the Analects of Confucius. The ideas to be found in the Analects have been so influential that they are often seen as the cornerstone of Confucianism. In this seminar series, we will be hosting three talks on the Analects by leading experts in Confucian thought, covering topics in ethics and political thought.
  • Prof. Stephen Angle (Wesleyan University), “The Analects and Modern Moral Philosophy” (Monday 3 May, 3-4.30pm BST)
  • Prof. LI Chenyang (Nanyang Technological University), “Li as Cultural Grammar: On the Relation Between Li and Ren in Confucius’ Analects” (Monday 17 May, 10-11.30am BST)
  • Prof. TAN Sor-Hoon (Singapore Management University), “Confucian Democracy and the Analects” (Monday 31 May, 10-11.30am BST)
REGISTRATION:

To register and receive Zoom details, please register here: https://forms.gle/KnQuzkgW2r9j8zYx6

If you have any questions, feel free to email us at:  philiminality.ox[at]gmail.com.

Organisers: Heeyoung Tae, Lea Cantor, Sihao Chew, and Flaminia Pischedda

Abstracts of all three talks follow.

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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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