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2025 Capstone Lectures with Dr. Josephine Chiu-Duke
Taiwan’s peaceful transformation from authoritarian rule to a liberal democracy in the early 1990s has been praised as a remarkable political achievement. This achievement\, despite the many challenges it has faced and still confronts\, has been thriving in the face of China’s claim of sovereignty over the island and its constant threats of serious coercion. To be sure\, Taiwan’s production of the world’ s most sought for semiconductor chips has already made Taiwan a pivotal lin k in the world supply chain.
What should be noted is that Taiwan toda y is also the only place where Chinese culture\, especially with regard to the values embedded in the Confucian humanistic tradition\, has been best p reserved since 1949 without being deliberately destroyed as it was during t he Chinese Cultural Revolution.
In her talk\, Dr. Chiu-Duke will disc uss why Taiwan’s successful search for liberty and democracy has yet to bri ng about a consensus on Taiwan’s dealing with China. She will also discuss how Confucius’ innovative re-interpretation of the doctrine of the Mandate of Heaven laid the foundation for the Chinese humanistic tradition. This tr adition was the key reason for China being identified as one of the “Axial civilizations.” However\, it has never being able to make an institutional breakthrough in its pursuit of the Confucian ideal of a humane government\, not even during the 1915 May Fourth New Culture movement when liberal demo cracy and science were advocated as the necessary goals for China’s path to modernity.
The establishment of the People’s Republic of China has l eft no room for liberal democracy\, but it is precisely in this respect tha t Dr. Chiu-Duke will argue that if China today is genuinely serious about i ts 2023 projected “global civilization initiative”\, it should see Taiwan a nd its democracy as a most viable reference for the success of this project instead of as a target for annexation. Only in this way can Taiwan democra cy continue its support for the healthy development of the Chinese humanist ic tradition with the values of this tradition continuing on to serve as a source for elevating the civility and quality of Taiwan democracy. Perhaps\ , only in this way can Taiwan democracy and the Chinese humanistic traditio n also make a contribution to the twin goals of world peace and stability.< /p>
This talk is free and open to the publ ic. Registration is encouraged for planning purposes.
Date & Time:
Thursday\, March 6\, 2025 | 3:00pm – 5:00pm (PST)
3:00pm - 3:30pm (PST) Recept
ion with light refreshments
3:30pm - 5:00pm (PST) Lecture and Q&A
[buttons ][button link_text="Register here" link_url="https://bit.ly/40X8oVF"][/butt ons]
She is the author of To Rebuild the Empire: Lu Chih< em>’s Confucian Pragmatist Approach to the Mid-Tang Predicament (2000)\, and In Search of Liberty: Lin Yusheng’s Life and Thought (2023).
Her edited works include Liberalism and the Humanistic Tradition – Essays in Honor of Professor Lin Yü-sheng (2005) [winner of Taiwan’s United Daily News award for best non-fiction book of 2 005] and The Spirit of the Modern Intellectual Aristocracy: Li n Yusheng’s Recent Works in Intellectual History (2020).
She is also co-editor of Ying-shih Yü\, Chinese History and Culture Volume 1: Sixth Century B.C.E. to Seventeenth Century C.E\, (2016) and Chine se History and Culture Volume 2: Seventeenth Through Twentieth Century (2016).
She co-translated Ge Zhaoguang’s two-volume An Intellect ual History of China (2014\, 2018) [Winner of the 2014 Choice Outstand ing Academic Title Award]\, and Yü Ying-shih’s From Rural China to the Ivy League: Yü Ying-shih’s Reminiscences of His Life and Times (2021).
She has presented and published many essays on Chinese and Taiwanese history\, political thought\, and literature.
Her many services to t he field and the department include Director of the Chinese Language Progra m\, and Co-Director (and later Director) of the Centre for Chinese Research in the Institute for Asian Research. Her many media presentations led to h er being chosen by the Vancouver Sun as one of the “100 Chinese-Ca nadians who are making a difference in British Columbia.”
The Capsto ne Lectures at the Department of Asian Studies recognize the retirement fro m teaching of professors of the Department. They are an occasion for collea gues\, students\, former students and the public to hear from faculty membe rs—who have\, in many cases\, taught and researched for decades at UBC—expl aining questions that have inspired their career-defining studies.
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CATEGORIES:Featured Chinese,Featured Events,Featured Homepage LOCATION:Auditorium\, Asian Centre GEO:49.263704;-123.254783 URL;VALUE=URI:https://asia.ubc.ca/events/event/taiwan-democracy-and-the-chi nese-humanistic-tradition/ ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://asia.cms.arts.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/18/2025/02/2025-Capstone-Lecture-Website-1200x628-1.png END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Vancouver BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:-0700 TZOFFSETTO:-0800 DTSTART:20241103T090000 TZNAME:PST END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR