Update: Published paper available at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2050303219874366. This paper examines how “love” as an affective concept was brought into the Chinese vocabulary where previously such meaning was absent, and the ways in which it has been adapted as a political discourse and a social force in Republican (1911-1949) and Communist China (1949-) in different ways. Although the making of love as an affect for the project of Chinese modernity has been noted by certain scholars, the source of such affect is primarily attributed to Christianity and Christian humanism (Lee, Goossaert, Wielander, Wickeri). My project will show 1) a typology of Christian influence as missionaries helped to reconfigure Asia through love when overt political and military power had begun to prove difficult or impossible to execute effectively, and as legacies of sentimentalism drawn into the age of modern nation-state nationalism: imperialism registered in the language of love; 2) alternative impact from revolutionary radicalism (e.g. October Revolution in Russia and socialism in France) and folk religions that has been decisive to the formation of the discourse of universal love, equality, and ‘harmonious society’ in state propaganda and everyday politics. This project will carefully take a top-down and from-below approach, to explore sources from media, contextual theology, and state propaganda. Ultimately, I wish this project could elucidate the expression of feeling as the means by which institutions and cultural authenticity are created and renewed, a means that has so far been neglected in the study of religion and politics in China.

Daniel Bell’s The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy is a significant contribution to contemporary political theory. I am very much in sympathy with his ideal of political meritocracy, although I would disagree with him on the degree to which it is realized or practiced in China today; for me, the reality is as distant from Bell’s ideal of political meritocracy, if I understand it correctly, as it is from democracy. However, in the present comment, I will not exploit this disagreement. Instead, I will try to make two friendly amendments to his political meritocracy as an ideal, with which I have a lot of agreements. In the Introduction to the book, Bell discloses that “I developed an interest in political meritocracy as a result of engagement with the Confucian tradition, and my earlier writings on political meritocracy tended to be inspired more by Confucian philosophy than by actual politics” (Bell 2015, p. 12; references to this book hereafter will be indicated by page number only). Although in the book itself he does not make too explicit this source of his inspiration, since he believes the ideal of political meritocracy developed in the book may also be supported by other schools of thought, he still makes extensive references to Confucians and Confucian classics. Moreover, in the second appendix, he and his conversation partner explicitly and directly draw on the Confucian tradition in developing this ideal of political meritocracy. So the two friendly amendments to this ideal that I am about to offer are also explicitly and directly Confucian.

In Germany, religious education at state schools and theological teachers’ training are to be given “in accordance with the tenets of the religious community”. In the last 15 years, Islamic religious education and Islamic Theology have been established at school and university level. Faculties at the Islamic theological departments and the future Islam teachers are expected to be reformers of Islam and prototypes of the “good Muslim”. Critics, however, consider these steps an attempt for social control of Muslims. In my paper, I will look at the way German Islamic Theology designs its curricula between the requirements to teach Islam in accordance to the tenets of Muslim organizations and the public interest of having an Islam compatible to Western society. I will examine in which sense Islam as a subject in public education presents a litmus test to the relation between state, society, and the religious (Muslim) community in Germany.

This bibliography, which contains approximately 15,500 entries, aims to be inclusive from the Neolithic through the pre-Buddhist era and is continuously updated. I used to upload the file to my department website, but it can no longer handle such large uploads!

This bibliography comprises ca. 1,800 entries and will be continuously updated.

Zhuangzi, Heidegger and the (im)possibility of a global Chinese philosophy Fabian Heubel Abstract: Martin Heidegger’s fictional “Evening conversation in a prisoner of war camp” (included in volume 77 of his collected writings) is dated May 8, 1945, day of the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany. This text is an immediate response to German defeat. Irritating however is the use of a quote from the book Zhuangzi (in the translation of Richard Wilhelm), which forms the philosophical core of the text. Why and how does Heidegger use the Zhuangzi to think about the German defeat? Has Heidegger’s reference to this “Daoist” text to be understood as an escape from the responsibility of his entanglement with Nazi ideology? Or may it be read as sign of a philosophical turning against National Socialism: a turn, which has a normative content worthy of being seriously discussed? These questions lead to the problem whether the discussion of Heidegger’s 1945 turn to Chinese thought in particular (to which Chinese scholars have paid a great deal of attention) and his spiritual pivot to Asia in general, may provide important clues for understanding some of the contemporary geopolitical structures, which make it very difficult for Western philosophers to recognize the global significance of classical Chinese philosophy.

This article has reviewed the range of critical debates on the role of Confucianism in developing East Asian citizenship. The conceptualization of citizenship as either thin or thick and the conceptualization of Confucianism as either liberal or illiberal have spurred three interpretations. The incompatibility interpretation construes citizenship thinly and Confucian traditions as illiberal. It posits that obligation-oriented, hierarchical and authoritarian Confucians directly oppose rights-oriented, equal and democratic citizenship. The compatibility interpretation construes citizenship as thin and Confucian traditions as liberal. It posits that modern Confucian societies hold values that are compatible with thin citizenship. Among these values are citizenship rights, individualism and equality, and democracy and constitutionalism. Lastly, the reconstruction interpretation encompasses both conceptualizations of Confucianism and thick citizenship. It suggests that the reformulation of liberal and illiberal Confucianism and thick citizenship can yield junzi citizens, ethical society, and tianxia citizenship, which are more appropriate for East Asian countries. I coin the term junzi citizens to show how thick citizenship is fused with Confucianism to create a new type of modern subject. Junzi citizens are communitarian active citizens who have both responsibilities for the community and initiative for civic participations.

The article discusses central assumptions of Tu Weiming's program of overcoming the "enlightenment mentality" and throws a critical light on his conceptions of religious or spiritual Confucianism, of a Confucian modernity, and of the "multiple modernities" theory in general. It defends a unitary rather than multiple concept of modernity in terms of the realization of a morally controlled "principle of free subjectivity" and tries to show how Confucianism, understood as a secular ethics, could contribute to this goal.

Interpretations of PM Abe's speech to the U.S. Congress in April 2015 and his domestic and foreign policy initiatives bifurcate into two categories, admonishment and rebuke or praise and support. Employing diplomatic signaling, doublespeak and progressive forwardism as an analytical framework, this paper aims to explore these two views of PM Abe's by analyzing the contents his speech in the U.S., some of his domestic and foreign policies and his gestures of sincerity while on his visit. To further this objective, this paper will contextualize these words and actions within the broader context of PM Abe's second stint as Prime Minister since 2012. Findings suggest that PM Abe has used diplomatic signaling in his speeches and initiatives to lay the groundwork for various domestic and foreign policies including strengthening the US-Japan Alliance, reaching a settlement with South Korea over the Comfort Women issue and to launch structural changes in the Japanese economy.