Short Biography

Guoxiang Peng, Qiu Shi Distinguished Professor of Chinese philosophy, intellectual history and religions at Zhejiang University. Before he moved to Zhejiang University in 2014, he was professor at Peking University and Tsinghua University. He was visiting professor, scholar and fellow at various universities and institutions around the world, including Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (2019-2020), University of Frankfurt am Main (2014), Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity (2012), National University of Singapore(2012), Ruhr-University Bochum (2009, 2010), Chinese University of Hong Kong(2010), National Taiwan University(2009), Harvard-Yenching Institute (2004, 2007-2008), Wesleyan University(2006), and University of Hawaii(2003-2004). He is the 2016 Kluge Chair in Countries and Cultures of the North (Library of Congress, USA) and 2009 Awardee of the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award (Humboldt Foundation and the Ministry of Education and Research, Germany).

His publications include Self-cultivation as Spiritual and Bodily Exercise in Confucian Tradition (2022), Methodology of Chinese Philosophy: How to Do Chinese Philosophy (2020), Confucian Tradition: Between Religion and Humanism (2007, 2019), Reconstruction of This Culture of Ours: Confucianism and Contemporary World (2013, 2018, 2019), This-worldly Concern of the Wise: The Political and Social Thought of Mou Zongsan(1909-1995) (2016), Revision and New Discovery: Historical Study of Pre-Modern Confucianism from Northern Song till Early Qing Dynasty (2013, 2015), The Unfolding of the Innate Good Knowing: Wang Ji and the Yangming Learning in Mid-Late Ming (2003, 2005, 2015), Confucian Tradition from Classical Period to Its Contemporary Transformation: Speculation and Interpretation(2012), and Confucian Tradition and Chinese Philosophy: Retrospect and Prospect in a New Century (2009) and numerous articles.

Project

As one of the most influential intellectual movements, modern Confucianism has received much attention. But the dominant approach to observing it is to ask such a question: how did those modern Confucian intellectuals rethink and reinterpret the development of Confucian tradition in a new world order? In doing so, the focus is primarily Chinese tradition in transformation. Although the conceptions of the world in the 20^th century or earlier were embraced, they have not been regarded as the central concern but subsidiary awareness of the modern Confucian thinkers. Rethinking and reinterpreting Chinese tradition in general and Confucianism in particular are no doubt central to modern Confucian revival. On the other hand, we should also notice what the world order was and what it should be were also entailed in their thinking, which is usually a lifelong dialogue with Western intellectual tradition. Unfortunately, this dimension has not received enough attention. Based on my previous works on modern Confucianism, this project will focus on this dimension.