Lecture
LUCIP Colloquium "Hu Shih’s Reinterpretation of Confucianism: Tradition Through a Modern Lens.”
- Date
- Wednesday 11 November 2026
- Time
- Location
-
Lipsius
Cleveringaplaats 1
2311 BD Leiden - Room
- 1.28
The Leiden University Centre of Intercultural Philosophy is pleased to announce a lecture by Jing Hu, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Chinese Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA.
Abstract
Hu Shih is often portrayed as one of the most radical advocates of Westernization in modern China, yet his engagement with Confucianism was far more complex than a simple rejection of tradition. This talk examines how Hu selectively reinterpreted Confucian thought and institutions through the lens of modern ideals of democracy, humanism, and social reform. While he strongly criticized traditional practices such as filial piety and hierarchical loyalty for constraining individual freedom and independent thought, he respected Confucius as a humanist and religious agnostic and accorded him an important place in the history of Chinese philosophy, particularly through the doctrine of the “rectification of names.” Moreover, although Hu’s critique of xiao largely overlooked its historical role in legitimizing ministerial remonstrance and resistance to imperial policies, he sought to preserve related traditions of internal political criticism through civil service examination and governmental censorate. Hu’s selective engagement with Confucianism thus reveals not a wholesale rejection of tradition, but a reinterpretation shaped by his reformist agenda and his effort to adapt elements of China’s intellectual and institutional heritage to the needs of a modern society.
About
Jing Hu is Senior Lecturer of Chinese Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, USA. Prior to joining Penn, she served as a Senior Lecturer in Humanities at Yale–NUS College in Singapore and as a Lecturer in Chinese at Smith College in the United States. With broad interdisciplinary interests, Jing Hu has delivered numerous presentations at international conferences and has authored, translated, and edited publications in the fields of Chinese literature, philosophy, translation studies, and Teaching Chinese as a Second Language. She was invited by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network to deliver talks on “Hu Shih on Universal Ethics” at both The Aristotle–Confucius Symposium on Ethics for the 21st Century in Greece in 2023 and The Aristotle–Confucius Symposium 2024: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Challenges in China in 2024. Her translation work includes contributions to Anthology of Tang and Song Tales: The Tang-Song “Chuanqi ji” of Lu Xun (World Scientific, 2020), Ming Dynasty Tales: A Guided Reader (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022), and Eternal Nostalgia: Gems of Ancient Chinese Poems of Mourning and Texts of Lament (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024). She also co-edited Appreciating Contemporary Chinese Film Classics (Jiangsu Renmin Chubanshe, 2020) and Appreciating Classics of Modern Chinese Literature (Nanjing University Press, 2023).
All are welcome!