Walking through the hutong of Beijing, an outsider can miss a lot of the life that unfolds there. It seems like you see a great deal: people strolling out of their doorways in the morning in their pajamas; eagle-eyed nainai… Continue reading

Now that my semester is drawing to an end (still have grading to do), my mind is turning toward my research question: why has Confucianism not gained greater prominence in the United States in the past century (or so), and… Continue reading

Let me preface this with a statement of my own political position.  I believe the election of Donald Trump is a disaster on many levels, and I will do whatever I can to limit his power while he is in… Continue reading

The US Presidential contest has taken on bizarre twists and turns in recent weeks and months, mostly generated by the unstable behavior of Donald Trump.  So, it is high time we settle the matter and consult the oracle, which I… Continue reading

I want to return to something that comes up in Jiwei Ci's book, Moral China in the Age of Reform, and elaborate on it in reference to struggles over changing constructions of gender in contemporary China. Ci takes as his… Continue reading

What can Confucianism be in a modern context? That question has been turning over in my mind a lot lately, as I move through Beijing and think about the class I am teaching at the Renmin University Summer School: "Confucianism… Continue reading

In 1915, Gu Hongming (Ku Hung-Ming) – a Chinese man born in Penang, educated in the UK, who rose to prominence serving an imperial government official in the waning years of Qing Dynasty China – published a book, The Spirit… Continue reading

[A momentary break from my usual blogging focus to address a local controversy] [Update: for the sake of clarity, I have deleted one phrase and added another. Readers will see this below at the strikethoughed text]     I am a teacher.… Continue reading

 I've been following Leigh Jenco's work in comparative philosophy for some time now and was most happy to see her new book come out late last year: Changing Referents: Learning Across Space and Time in China and the West.  It… Continue reading

In the new Star Wars movie, two characters form a converse pair: Kylo Ren, son of Han Solo and Leia Skywalker, had been trained as a Jedi Knight but turned to the Dark Side; Finn, on the other hand, had… Continue reading