Department Faculty

“I specialize in the intellectual history of late imperial China, from the sixteenth to early nineteenth century. With my abiding interest in Confucianism as a dynamic and multifaceted tradition, my work cuts across disciplinary boundaries and is situated at the intersection of various fields: history, philosophy and religious studies. Apart from the 2001 monograph, Cheng-Zhu Confucianism in the Early Qing: Li Guangdi and Qing Learning, and the 2005 co-authored volume, Mirroring the Past: The Writing and Use of History in Imperial China, I have published scores of book chapters and articles in a variety of major academic periodicals, including Journal of the History of Ideas, Journal of Chinese Religions, Philosophy East and West, Journal of Chinese Philosophy and Journal of World History.

“I am writing a book on the classical jinwen (New Script) commentaries in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century China. While it is primarily an investigation of a Confucian exegetical tradition with distinct hermeneutical disciplines and philosophical concerns, it also explores the interpretive possibilities opened up by contemporary Western hermeneutic theories of reading and understanding.

“I work with various academic organizations in multiple administrative capacities. I was Executive-Secretary and Member of the Advisory Board of the Mid-Atlantic Region of the Association for Asian Studies. I am Associate Editor and Book Review Editor of the Journal of Chinese Philosophy, and a member of its Editorial Board. Since 2002, I have been a Director of the Society for the Study of Chinese Religions, and Chairperson of the University Seminar on Neo-Confucianism at Columbia University.”