The Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Macau successfully held a two-day workshop, “Methods in Chinese and Comparative Philosophy,” on 7–8 March 2026 in room E21A–3118. The event brought together scholars from leading institutions in the Greater Bay Area, Mainland China, and Europe to examine methodological challenges in conducting comparative philosophical research.
Professors and graduate students of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies engage in workshop discussion.
The workshop featured six speakers: Rory O’Neill (University of Macau), Alba Curry (University of Leeds), Kevin Turner (Hong Kong Baptist University), Mateusz Janik (Polish Academy of Sciences), Luyao Li (Peking University), and Gina Lebkuecher (Wuhan University). All speakers are members of the Comparative/Chinese Philosophy Research Initiative (CPRI).
Invited speakers enjoy a stroll through campus.
Several faculty members from the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies also joined the discussions, including Prof. Ellen Ying Zhang, Prof. Wang Qingjie, Prof. Hans-Georg Moeller, Prof. Victoria Harrison, and Prof. Benjamin Winokur. Their engagement contributed to a rich exchange of ideas and fostered deeper collaboration within the department and the broader CPRI community.
Dr. Li Luyao delivers the final talk of the workshop.
Across the two days, the workshop explored topics including genealogy and hermeneutics in Chinese philosophy, methodological approaches in comparative ethics, interdisciplinary frameworks for post-comparative research, methodological tensions in the philosophy of emotions, methods to achieve publicness in early Chinese political philosophy, and signature concepts of Chinese philosophy.
Discussions highlighted new ways of bridging historical materials with contemporary philosophical inquiry and emphasized the importance of careful methodological reflection in comparative studies.
Participants celebrate the success of the workshop.
The event reflects the department’s ongoing commitment to promoting innovative approaches to Chinese and comparative philosophy and to supporting dialogue across diverse philosophical traditions.
Workshop poster