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Northeast Conference on Chinese Thought, 2025 Duke University #conference Abstract: Human dignity is a central concept in contemporary moral and political life, yet its philosophical grounding remains unsettled. Attempts to base dignity on an inherent human trait face the well known “exclusion problem,” and recent Confucian moral-achievement accounts have claimed to overcome this difficulty. I critically evaluate these proposals and examine other Confucian resources—such as c

In his new book, Benoît Vermander (Fudan University, Shanghai) explores the “gardens” of Chinese-Western comparative philosophy, assessing the problems of what he sees as the current dominant approach and subsequently proposing a compelling alternative for its future direction. Whether or not the reader agrees with Vermander’s concluding proposal, the book is unequivocally successful in its aim of under cutting the “compare and contrast” methodology, solidifying the basis for

BAI Tongdong, Yanlin "Elaine" Chen, and Emily Kluge at Fudan University with Chinese Philosophy graduate students, 2024 In May 2024, I presented my paper, "Incomplete Bodies in Early Confucianism and Zhuangzi," at Fudan University. Abstract: This paper considers how early Confucianism and the Zhuangzi respond to bodily “incompleteness” and examines the extent to which Zhuangzi’s critique in Dechongfu remains philosophically salient. Although Zhuangzi overstates the Confucian