Course: Taoism and Western Culture

There are famous people who said nice things about Laozi, and thus helped to boast Taoism’s popularity. For example, Leo Tolstoi, Arthur Schopenhauer and Bertrand Russell. Many European universities and …

Stepping out of the highly elitist and inflexible world of professional sinology, observers will find a Taoist world that looks much more vibrant and diverse, but also increasingly deregulated and …

This atmosphere of systematic cultural censorship and sinophobia in Europe makes it often difficult for pro-China voices to speak their mind, let alone talk Taoism. There’s an anxiety over the …

American scholars, too, typically superimpose their lingua, reinvent all disciplines, establish new rules, and promote their own national champions of course. Therefore, a lot of the impact of Taoism isn’t …

The German translator Richard Wilhelm wasn’t interested in introducing Taoism; but used Taoism or elements of it to introduce Richard Wilhelm himself. He even said that Asian thought was just …

In Europe there was the competition for the sovereignty over the definition of thought. Everyone wishes to discuss foreign cultures – but only in their own terms. It is very …

Many Western translators and scholars translated and interpreted Chinese works according to their own preferences as if they could act as consumers in the market of cultural ideas who could …

The “discovery” of Taoism by European scholars was mainly made by missionaries who tried to look for “facts” to support European theology. Later on, every European culture then went on …

Taoism is of great importance and yet it is less “visible” than Buddhism in Europe, mainly because there are countless Buddha images while Taoist images are relatively fewer. Thus we …

This week, Thorsten Pattberg will take you to have a look around views in European thoughts and how Taoist themes enter Europe’s mainstream. Although Taoism originated in China, of course, …

When we teach the Dao De Jing for Westerners, we try to get away from words and into images. A favorite image for the Dao De Jing is water. Daoism …

Hi, I’m Roger T. Ames, Professor of Philosophy at University of Hawai’i and Co-director of the East-West Center’s Asian Studies Development Program in the United States. My Vision of the …

The Dao De Jing is a new and newly available resource speaking to contemporary issues of our time such as environmental degradation through overdevelopment, the degradation of fundamental social values, …

Today, the Daoist principle still works in China. Loess Plateau Rehabilitation Project is a great attempt started recently. This experiment is not working in the West, it only worked in …

Dujiangyan built in Chengdu, is a Daoistic reverential transformation for the natural environment. This waterworks has worked essentially for 2300 years without any need for being made better, made more …