Eirik Harris, a specialist in early Chinese philosophy (especially Xunzi and Han Feizi) and comparative philosophy (especially the nexus of virtue and politics) has accepted a position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Public and Social Administration, City University of Hong Kong. Harris received his Ph. D. in 2009 from the University of Utah, and has been teaching at Underwood International College at Yonsei University. At City University, he will be joining a number of specialists in Chinese thought, including P.J. Ivanhoe, Ruiping Fan, and Sungmoon Kim. Congratulations, Eirik!
Category Archives: Profession
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!
On Research: How Chinese Should Chinese Philosophy Be?
I’d like to do a little informal poll on two questions relating to research and publication on Chinese philosophy. I welcome your responses.
First, what do you think of scholars who can’t read primary sources publishing on Chinese philosophy? Is being able to read original sources important? I should perhaps clarify that what I mean are not the “translations” one sometimes finds (e.g., of the Laozi) by people who don’t read classical Chinese, but scholarly articles or books.
The second question concerns use of secondary literature. My own observation is that Western scholars, even those who read Chinese, often don’t refer to Chinese secondary literature. By “secondary literature” I mean specifically 20th and 21st century academic work, not traditional commentaries. I’m curious why this is and what other people in the field think about it. Is it a problem? Or is it instead a sign of the development of the field, that we have our own English-language debates just as specialists in ethics might have debates about Kant that don’t refer to the German literature at all?
Philosophy Encyclopedias and Chinese Philosophy
One of the things I subscribe to in Google Reader, but almost never look at, is a feed from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy listing new or updated articles. Why am I subscribed to this? I have no idea. But yesterday I clicked on it, and started to scroll back through the new stuff posted there over the last months. Increasingly, I found myself wondering: how come none of these concern Chinese philosophy? A fair number dealt with figures or concepts from Indian or Tibetan philosophy, but not until I got all the way back to Dec 6, 2010 did I find a mention of China. That’s when Kwong-loi Shun updated his article on Mencius. You want the most recent new article on Chinese philosophy? That would be October 1, 2009, when Alan Chan posted one on Neo-Taoism. Continue reading →
Results of Survey on teaching Chinese Philosophy
Back in 2009 and 2010, Minh Nguyen surveyed a wide range of instructors of course on Chinese philosophy to learn about the challenges they faced and about resources they found particularly useful. He has now published the survery data in the Fall 2011 Newsletter of the APA Committee on Asian and Asian-American Philosophers and Philosophies. He and Manyul Im are working on an essay extracting lessons from the survey, but in the meantime, discussion of its results are welcome here.
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.
New source of philosophy event information
The new website philevents looks like a promising way to keep abreast of conferences and talks around the philosophy world. “Asian philosophy” is one of its categories, so one can set it up to alert one to this particular category of events, should one so desire. Of course, the sponsors of such events will need to register them with philevents for this to have any effect, and so far it appears that no one has.
Current job openings related to Chinese philosophy
I recently took a look through the current issue of Jobs for Philosophers (which is available to APA members at the APA’s new-and-harder-to-navigate website). Listed here are the ads for positions listing Asian, Non-Western, or Chinese philosophy, as well as one position that was not listed in this JFP. If there are other jobs you know of, please let us all know. Other comments also welcome. (Update, 11/11: note the additional jobs listed in the comments, which are currely listed as “web-only.”) Continue reading →
ACPA Nominations Open
JeeLoo Liu, current president of the Association of Chinese Philoosphers in America, writes: Continue reading →
Robins to HKU
Dan Robins, a frequent contributor to this blog, has accepted a job offer from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong. Congratulations, Dan! Dan joins several other colleagues at HKU working in Chinese philosophy: Chad Hansen, who has returned to teach common core curriculum courses on behalf of the Department of Philosophy; Tang Siufu, in the School of Chinese; Joseph Chan, in the Department of Politics and Public Administration; and myself, in the Department of Philosophy.
