I guess my field is Chinese intellectual history, but I've always done comparative intellectual

history, both Europe and China, so in that way I was probably well suited to be in this

environment.

But specifically my research currently is focused on medieval religion and especially

relations between figures that we identify as philosophers who are engaged in divination

and mythology and spirit tales and spirit possession, things that we don't normally

associate with philosophy.

But in this case, in China they're very much a part of metaphysics, and so I've been exploring

that in my time here.

I think because China today is a country that is undergoing widespread religious revitalization

and the introduction of, in many cases, new religions to various parts of the country,

that because I'm a scholar of Chinese religion and have studied many of its popular traditions

going back, for that matter, to ancient times, there's something uniquely suited about a

convergence here of what I have long studied and what China is now undergoing.

And so in that respect, I think the work that I'm doing at the IKGF will in many ways provide

perhaps a greater degree of understanding of the behaviors that many people observe today

in China and see as startling because we believe China to be a largely secular or atheistic

society and for us to observe this religious revitalization strikes many as quite remarkable,

and in fact I think my work will demonstrate that this has long been a feature of Chinese

life, diverse religious traditions and peoples who are pursuing a concern about the spirit

and about divine forces within their daily lives.

So in that way, there's an undercurrent of similarity, if you will, between past and

present.

I've worked on three different projects while I was here.

First was completing the co-editing of a book on contemporary China, a collection of essays

on everything from economy to politics to social life in contemporary China, as well

as a scholarly article on Zhu Xi, the figure that I've been working on especially at the

COLEG.

And then lastly, the completion of this manuscript that deals in its second half with Zhu Xi's

metaphysics and the popular religions that influenced his formation of this metaphysics.

So in that way you might say my work has been engaged in ancient medieval and contemporary

China at the same time and across a very broad sphere, not just chronologically but also

in terms of European and Chinese subjects.

Zhu Xi is perhaps after Confucius, China's single best-known philosophic figure whose

legacy is in fact very well known to most all Chinese students even today who have had

to learn from many of the commentaries and works that he either wrote or collected in

the course of his life in medieval China.

And the legacy of his work was etched out over a period of six centuries during which

all scholars who trained for the civil service in China and for that matter students of even

elementary learning were expected to memorize portions of if not all of his commentaries

on many of the classical works.

The environment at the Koleg has been a singularly creative one for all of us and I speak I think

for every person I've met since I've been there, we all feel that our life together

has been enriched by our time there and whether one is staying for a week or two weeks or

half a year a year, it seems that everyone has agreed that one of its strongest contributions

to our lives has been spiritual and personal growth that neither could we have expected

or have realized could be this deep and profound and has endured I think in many ways for all

of us in shape and orientation toward each other and also to our fields.