'Facing Human Vulnerability in a Dangerous World: Two Chinese Responses,' March 18

Wednesday, March 18, 7:30-9 p.m. UAA/APU Consortium Library, Room 307

Join distinguished scholar and philosopher Aaron Stalnaker as he presents, "Facing Human Vulnerability in a Dangerous World: Two Chinese Responses." This lecture will address Mengzi's (and perhaps Xunzi's) defense of ritual as an appropriate response to human desires and aspirations, given our nature and the nature of the world as a whole; and then turn to Zhuangzi's criticism of received ritual forms, in favor of a more radical acceptance of unstoppable change.

Speaker Aaron Stalnaker is a distinguished scholar and philosopher. He is an associate professor of religious studies, philosophy and East Asian languages and cultures at Indiana University. He is a core faculty member in the Department of Religious Studies, serves as the dean of Graduate Studies and has made tremendous contributions to the Department of Religious Studies in building its strong academics. He earned his bachelor's degree from Stanford, and obtained his Ph.D. from Brown. He is an expert in ethics and philosophy of religion, giving serious attention to both Chinese and Western theories and practices.

He is the author of Overcoming Our Evil: Human Nature and Spiritual Exercises in Xunzi and Augustine (Georgetown University Press, 2006), a comparative study of different models of moral and religious personal formation. He recently co-edited Religious Ethics in a Time of Globalism: Shaping a Third Wave of Comparative Analysis (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). He has lectured at many leading universities, including Harvard Divinity School, Princeton University, University of Michigan and Georgetown University.

Free parking is available at UAA after 7.30 p.m. in lots adjacent to the UAA/APU Consortium Library.

For more information about this and upcoming lectures, please visit the Confucius Institute website.

March Archive