SUNY series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture

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Unlocking the Chinese Gate

Offers an innovative analysis of gates—as architectural components, visual images, and mental constructs—in early Chinese thought and material culture.

Myth and the Making of History

Sheds new light on the relationship between myth and history in ancient China and the central role they have played in shaping early Chinese thought.

Freedom's Frailty

Draws on Guo Xiang's commentary on the Zhuangzi to construct an account of freedom that is both metaphysical and political.

Narrative Devices in the Shiji

Provides a new model for reading the Shiji and other early Chinese historical texts.

The Origins of Chinese Literary Hermeneutics

Explores how China’s oldest poetry collection was interpreted in a Confucian exegetical text—the Mao Commentary—in the mid-second century BCE.

Li Dazhao

Biography of a major figure in modern Chinese history.

Confucian Iconoclasm

Challenges deep-seated assumptions about the traditionalist nature of Confucianism by providing a new interpretation of the emergence of modern Confucianism in Republican China.

Writing Early China

Considers what unearthed documents reveal about the creation and transmission of knowledge in ancient China.

A Sourcebook in Classical Confucian Philosophy

Applies a method of comparative cultural hermeneutics to let the tradition speak on its own terms.

The Annotated Laozi

A clear translation and helpful explanations illuminate this ancient classic of self-cultivation for a modern audience.

The Craft of Oblivion

Examines the intersections between forgetting and remembering in classical Chinese civilization.

From Metaphysical Representations to Aesthetic Life

Reevaluates Western and Chinese philosophical traditions to question the boundaries of entrenched conceptual frameworks.

The Chinese Love Story from the Tenth to the Fourteenth Century

Traces the development of the Chinese love story during the Song and Yuan dynasties.

A Walk in the Night with Zhuangzi

A complete translation and analysis of "All Things Flow into Form" (Fan wu liu xing), a recently discovered manuscript from the Warring States period (481–221 BCE).

Confucian Liberalism

Offers a renovated form of Confucian liberalism that forges a reconciliation between the two extremes of anti-Confucian liberalism and anti-liberal Confucianism.

The Future of China's Past

Addresses the question of China's rise and what it portends for the future.

The Many Lives of Yang Zhu

Presents the most important portrayals of the Daoist master Yang Zhu throughout Chinese history, from the Warring States period until today.

Approaches to Chan, Sŏn, and Zen Studies

A comprehensive treatment of the shared traditions of Chan, Sŏn, and Zen in dynamic interaction across East Asia, acknowledging the changing and growing parameters of the field of Zen studies.

A Conceptual Lexicon for Classical Confucian Philosophy

Uses a comparative hermeneutical method to explain the most important terms in the classical Confucian philosophical texts, in an effort to allow the tradition to speak on its own terms.

Persons Emerging

Offers three neo-Confucian understandings of broadening the Way as broadening oneself, through an ongoing process of removing self-boundaries.

Lore and Verse

Explores how poetry was used to disseminate and interpret history in early medieval China.

Technical Arts in the Han Histories

The first concerted attempt to analyze how the histories Shiji and Hanshu described the technical arts as they were applied in vital areas of the administration of pre-Han and Han China.

Ziran

The ancient concept of spontaneous self-causation (ziran) from Daoism opens a path to understanding human action as self-organizing, attention as effortless, and art as somatic.

Self-Cultivation in Early China

An introduction to ancient Chinese ideas on how to live a good life.

Cognition and Practice

Explores the aesthetic theory of one of China's most important and influential contemporary philosophers.

The Emergence of Word-Meaning in Early China

Posits the origin of a specifically Chinese concept of “word-meaning,” and sheds new light on the linguistic ideas in early Chinese philosophical texts.

A Philosophical Defense of Culture

Draws on two different but strikingly similar streams in our world tradition to argue for the contemporary philosophical relevance of “culture.”

The Contemplative Foundations of Classical Daoism

Brings early Daoist writings into conversation with contemporary contemplative studies.

Friendship and Hospitality

Offers a comparative and deconstructive reading of the cross-cultural encounter between the Jesuits and their Confucian hosts in late Ming China.

Human Beings or Human Becomings?

Argues that Confucianism and other East Asian philosophical traditions can be resources for understanding and addressing current global challenges such as climate change and hunger.

Reconsidering the Life of Power

Offers a compelling intercultural perspective on body, art, self, and society.

Abolishing Boundaries

Offers new perspectives on modern Chinese political thought.

Human Becomings

Offers an in-depth exposition of the Confucian conception of persons as the starting point of Confucian ethics.

Confucian Role Ethics

Argues that the only way to understand the Confucian vision of the consummate moral life is to take the tradition on its own terms.

Confucianism's Prospects

Challenges descriptions of East Asian societies as Confucian cultures and communitarian Confucian models as a political alternative to liberal democracy.

Beyond the Troubled Water of Shifei

Offers the first focused study of the shifei debates of the Warring States period in ancient China and challenges the imposition of Western conceptual categories onto these debates.

John Dewey and Daoist Thought

Proposes an “intra-cultural philosophy” based on John Dewey’s “cultural turn” and promotes Daoist thought as a resource that can help to reconstruct outmoded assumptions that continue to shape how we currently think.

Experiments in Intra-cultural Philosophy Set (Volumes 1 and 2)

Argues that we move beyond philosophy that is simply “comparative” and uses John Dewey’s late period reflections as the basis for an alternative.

Zhuangzi and the Becoming of Nothingness

Investigates the cosmological and metaphysical thought in the Zhuangzi from the perspective of nothingness.

John Dewey and Confucian Thought

Assesses John Dewey’s visit to China in 1919–21 as an “intra-cultural” episode and promotes “Chinese natural philosophy” as a philosophical context in which to understand the connections between Dewey’s philosophy and early Confucian thinking.

Literate Community in Early Imperial China

Through an examination of archaeologically recovered texts from China’s northwestern border regions, argues for widespread interaction with texts in the Han period.

In Pursuit of the Great Peace

Examines the Great Peace (taiping), one of the first utopian visions in Chinese history, and its impact on literati lives in Han China.

Dao and Sign in History

Provides a new perspective on important linguistic issues in philosophical and religious Daoism through the comparative lens of twentieth-century European philosophies of language.

Appreciating the Chinese Difference

A wide-ranging exploration and critical assessment of the work of a major figure in Chinese and comparative philosophy.

Heaven Is Empty

Offers a new perspective on the relationship between religion and the creation of the first Chinese empires.

Language as Bodily Practice in Early China

Challenges the idea held by many prominent twentieth-century Sinologists that early China experienced a “language crisis. ”

Apophatic Paths from Europe to China

An encounter between Franke’s philosophy of the unsayable and Eastern apophatic wisdom in the domains of poetry, thought, and culture.

Having a Word with Angus Graham

Critical reflections on the work of Angus Charles Graham, renowned Western scholar of Chinese philosophy and sinology.

Intimate Memory

Sheds new light on pre-modern Chinese gender relationships in the context of marriage, male Confucian literati self-presentation, and social networks.

Reading for the Moral

Reassesses didacticism in seventeenth-century Chinese vernacular fiction and challenges the view that the late Ming was a notoriously immoral time.

Expressing the Heart's Intent

Using Li Zehou’s theories of aesthetics, argues for the importance of the arts to philosophy.

Confucianism for the Contemporary World

Discusses contemporary Confucianism's relevance and its capacity to address pressing social and political issues of twenty-first-century life.

Birth in Ancient China

Reveals cultural paradigms and historical prejudices regarding the role of birthing and women in the reproduction of society.

Between History and Philosophy

Analyzes the use of anecdotes as an essential rhetorical tool and form of persuasion in various literary genres in early China.

China's Lonely Revolution

Presents a new view of the Chinese revolution through the lens of the local Communist movement in Hainan between 1926 and 1956.

Confucianism and American Philosophy

A comparative analysis of Confucianism and the American Transcendentalist and Pragmatist traditions.

Neo-Confucian Ecological Humanism

Addresses Ming Dynasty philosopher Wang Fuzhi’s neo-Confucianism from the perspective of contemporary ecological humanism.

Self-Realization through Confucian Learning

Confucian philosopher Xunzi’s moral thought is considered in light of the modern focus on self-realization.

The Rhetoric of Hiddenness in Traditional Chinese Culture

Considers the role of hiddenness in the history of cultural production in premodern China.

Zhuangzi's Critique of the Confucians

Looks at the Daoist Zhuangzi's critique of Confucianism.

The Commentarial Transformation of the Spring and Autumn

Shows how the text evolved from a non-narrative historical record into a Confucian classic.

The Heir and the Sage, Revised and Expanded Edition

A comprehensive analysis of the transformations of ancient history in early Chinese texts.

Crossing the Gate

Challenges the accepted wisdom about women and gender roles in medieval China.

Understanding the Analects of Confucius

A new translation and commentary of the Analects for contemporary audiences.

Fundamentals of Comparative and Intercultural Philosophy

Discusses the conditions of possibility for intercultural and comparative philosophy, and for crosscultural communication at large.

The Deep Ecology of Rhetoric in Mencius and Aristotle

Discusses philosophers Mencius and Aristotle as socio-ecological thinkers.

Chinese Thought as Global Theory

Using Chinese thought, explores how non-Western thought can structure generally applicable social and political theory.

Buried Ideas

Four Warring States texts discovered during recent decades challenge longstanding understandings of Chinese intellectual history.

Daoism, Meditation, and the Wonders of Serenity

An overview of Daoist texts on passive meditation from the Latter Han through Tang periods.

In the Shadows of the Dao

Challenges standard views of the origins of the Daodejing, revealing the work’s roots in a tradition of physical cultivation.

Embracing Our Complexity

Using the thought of Christian thinker Thomas Aquinas and Neo-Confucian Zhu Xi, explores how to exercise and limit authority.

Returning to Zhu Xi

A reconsideration of Zhu Xi, known as the “great synthesizer” of Confucianism, which establishes him as an important thinker in his own right.

Encounters of Mind

Discusses the journey of Buddhist ideas on awareness and personhood from India to China.

Whose Tradition? Which Dao?

Considers the notable similarities between the thought of Confucius and Wittgenstein.

Confucian Propriety and Ritual Learning

A reconsideration of the Confucian concept li (ritual or ritual propriety), one that references Western philosophers as well as the Chinese context.

Translating China for Western Readers

Explores the challenges of translating Chinese works for Western readers, particularly premodern texts.

From Comparison to World Literature

Reintroduces the concept of “world literature” in a truly global context, transcending past Eurocentrism.

Red God

The career of communist revolutionary Wei Baqun, one of China’s “three great peasant leaders” and man of the southern frontier.

The Sage Returns

An interdisciplinary exploration of the contemporary Confucian revival.

Why Be Moral?

Explores the resources for contemporary ethics found in the work of the Cheng brothers, canonical neo-Confucian philophers.

Moral Cultivation and Confucian Character

A consideration of Confucian ethics that employs the work and concerns of the eminent comparative ethicist Joel J. Kupperman.

These Bones Shall Rise Again

David N. Keightley’s seminal essays on the origins of Chinese society are brought together in one volume.

Reconstructing the Confucian Dao

Discusses how Zhou Dunyi's thought became a cornerstone of neo-Confucianism.

Communication and Cooperation in Early Imperial China

Challenges traditional views of the Qin dynasty as an oppressive regime by revealing cooperative aspects of its governance.

Witchcraft and the Rise of the First Confucian Empire

Contests long-standing claims that Confucianism came to prominence under China's Emperor Wu.

Ritual and Religion in the Xunzi

Challenges traditional views to consider Xunzi as a religious thinker.

Moral Relativism and Chinese Philosophy

A wide ranging consideration of the work of contemporary ethicist David Wong.

Beyond Oneness and Difference

Continues the author’s inquiry into the development of the Chinese philosophical concept Li, concluding in Song and Ming dynasty Neo-Confucianism.

The Canon of Supreme Mystery by Yang Hsiung

Translation of the first grand synthesis of classic Chinese thought.

Music, Cosmology, and the Politics of Harmony in Early China

Explores the religious, political, and cultural significance attributed to music in early China.

Ironies of Oneness and Difference

Explores the development of Chinese thought, highlighting its concern with questions of coherence.

Dubious Facts

An innovative approach to historical records assesses how evidence claims and policy arguments were put forth in the royal courts of early China.

The Shaman and the Heresiarch

The first book-length study in English of the Chinese classic, the Li sao (Encountering Sorrow). Includes translations of the Li sao and the Nine Songs.

Red Genesis

Looks at the role of the Hunan First Normal School in fostering a generation of founders and key figures in the Chinese Communist Party.

Li Zhi, Confucianism, and the Virtue of Desire

A philosophical analysis of the work of one of the most iconoclastic thinkers in Chinese history, Li Zhi, whose ethics prized spontaneous expression of genuine feelings.

The Old Master

A unique translation of and commentary on the Laozi, based on the oldest edition of the work.

Mortality in Traditional Chinese Thought

A wide-ranging exploration of traditional Chinese views of mortality.

Riding the Wind with Liezi

New attention and fresh perspectives on the classic, but neglected, text of Daoism, the Liezi.

China's America

A fascinating look at Chinese perceptions of the United States and the cultural and political background that informs them.

Xu Bing and Contemporary Chinese Art

Explores how Xu Bing and other contemporary Chinese artists use Western ideas within a Chinese cultural discourse.