Chinese Thought of the Environment

Catalog description

Chinese culture contains a rich set of concepts for thinking about nature and the place of human beings within it. Many of these concepts such as Dao or Qi are uniquely Chinese and difficult to translate into English. This course aims to unpack this key conceptual vocabulary and analyze its application in Chinese philosophy, religion, medicine, etc. Students will read primary texts and secondary sources to gain a rich appreciation of how classical Chinese culture has conceptualized the relationship between human beings and the broader world, and consider the relevance of this for contemporary ethical issues such as climate change. 001331