Daoism, Ecology and Undisciplining the University

On October 14, 2016, I made a presentation at Harvard Divinity School on Daoism and Ecology. The context for this presentation was conference on Religion, Ecology, and our Planetary Future, organized by Harvard’s Center for the Study of World Religions. This conferenced marked the twentieth anniversary of a series of conferences on world religions and ecology that was organized in the 1990s by Mary Evelyn Tucker, and which led to the formation of the Harvard Forum on Religion and Ecology, now translated to the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology.

In this ten-minute talk I reflect on my experience of studying Daoism and Ecology, and attempt to link this to a broader conversation on how the disciplinary structures of the university underpin modes of knowledge production that are antithetical to an ecologically flourishing future. The future of religion and ecology thus entails the ushering in of new modes of thought spanning the sciences and humanitities, and requires an accompanying undsciplining of the university.

Learn more about my “outside-in” philosophy of education.

Sinology from the Perspective of Sustainability

In this talk, which came at the end of a conference on methods for studying Chinese religions, I discuss the idea that conventional sinological approaches to the study of religion operate from within a binary perspective of tradition and modernity. In contrast, I ask what the study of religion might look like if studied from the future framework of sustainability.

This talk was part of a conference held at Groningen University, funded by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange and the KNAW.

China’s Green Religion? Daoism and the Quest for a Sustainable Future

The monumental task that China faces in the 21st century is to create a way of development that does not destroy the ecological foundations for the life and livelihood of its 1.4 billion citizens. This requires a creative leap beyond the Enlightenment mentality and the Western model of industrialization. Can China’s cultural traditions, its religious values, ideals and ways of life, play a role in building a sustainable China?

The following video was recorded at the University of Southern California’s US-China Institute on November 19, 2014.

My Approach to Teaching

In 2012 students at Queen’s University interviewed me for a video project to help introduce new students to life at Queen’s. Here are some of the clips that focus on my approach to teaching.

Luo Tian Da Jiao

In 2007 a large scale 12-day Daoist ritual took place in Hong Kong to mark the tenth anniversary of the return of Hong Kong to China. This ten minute video captures some of the ritual, with commentary