The Useless Tree

Sam Crane

  • Nanluoguxiang and 30 years of China

    I'm back in Beijing, looking forward to my talk at the Bookworm tomorrow. But before that, this evening, I'll be talking about Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Dao with the good people at Sinica podcast (internet is slow here,… Continue reading

  • Book News: The China Digital Times Interview and the “Useless Tree” story

    Some of you may have already seen this, but I wanted to mention it here as well: Natalie Ornell, a writer for China Digital Times did an interview with me that is posted over at their site. Thanks for the… Continue reading

  • Birthday Thoughts

         Today is Aidan's birthday.       He would have been twenty-two.      As I think about his life, and what he gave to me, a passage from Zhuangzi comes to mind.  Without him, I would not have… Continue reading

  • Mozi on the House Republicans

    Yesterday, as I was watching the political debacle in DC unfold on my Twitter feed, I was simultaneously proof-reading a piece for the upcoming Berkshire Dictionary of Chinese Biography. I have written an entry for Mozi, the great pre-Qin philosopher… Continue reading

  • The Daodejing on House Republicans

    Watching the ideological intransigence of "conservative" (I put that in scare quotes because they are actually radical in their extremism) Republicans, brings two lines from the Analects to mind: 子曰：「君子周而不比，小人比而不周。」2.14  子曰：「攻乎異端，斯害也已！」2.16  Here's Hinton's translations: The Master said: "The noble-minded are… Continue reading

  • Are We OK?

    It's a nice autumn day here today: warm for the season, the blue sky now scattered with wispy clouds, the trees past their peak colors but still with plenty of yellow and orange and red.  So should we blog about… Continue reading

  • Book News: Talks in Beijing, Nanjing, and Shanghai

    My book – Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Dao: Ancient Chinese Thought in Modern American Life – is out!  You can get it directly from the publisher, Wiley.  On Amazon, as of today, only the Kindle edition is available. … Continue reading

  • Ancient Chinese Philosophy in the New York Times

    As you have probably noticed, I regularly complain that ancient Chinese thought rarely breaks through into contemporary American consciousness. So, I was pleasantly surprised this morning when I sat down with my second cup of coffee and took up my… Continue reading

  • The Political Implications of Translation: An Example from Confucius

    Yesterday I noticed a survey from The Carter Center, on their website US-China Perception Monitor.  It investigated how Chinese students studying in the US view Chinese and Western political systems. The results were complex, which is not surprising to anyone… Continue reading

  • The Power of the Afterlife and the Rise of Chinese Philosophy

    Two stories crossed my screen in the past two days, reinforcing each other in unexpected ways. The first is a piece in the NYT Sunday Review: "The Importance of the Afterlife. Seriously  In it, Samuel Scheffler, a philosopher at NYU,… Continue reading