Female Philosophers in Contemporary Taiwan and the Problem of Women in Chinese Thought

Jana S. Rošker

Sep 2021 · Cambridge Scholars Publishing

About this ebook

This book illuminates the problem of women in Chinese philosophy through the lens of the lives and work of two contemporary Taiwanese female philosophers. It takes two approaches that have been relegated, quite unfairly, to the margins of dominant discourses. The first is concerned with the work of women philosophical theorists who are still overshadowed by their male colleagues, regardless of where they live, their theoretical potential, and the value of their research. The second approach is related to the question of the role of Taiwanese philosophy in maintaining the continuity of the Chinese intellectual tradition in the second half of the twentieth century. The book thus connects these two issues and provides a bridge linking them. Although discrimination against female philosophical theorists, on the one hand, and the failure to recognize the important contribution of Taiwanese philosophy to the development of modern Chinese philosophy, on the other, seem, at first glance, to have little in common, both harbor a problem that has its roots in discourses of exclusion emanating from the political, historical, and social inequalities associated with power structures.

About the author

Jana S. Rošker obtained her PhD in Sinology from Vienna University, Austria. She is the first Slovene Sinologist, and co-founder and long-standing Head of the Department of Asian Studies at the University in Ljubljana. Her academic interests include traditional and modern Chinese philosophy and theory of knowledge, methodology of intercultural research, classical Chinese logic, and Modern Confucianism. In these research areas, she has hitherto published 15 books, and over 100 articles and book chapters. For her research work, she has received several prestigious awards, including the National Slovene Research Agency Prize for Extraordinary Scientific Achievements, the Golden Plaque of the University of Ljubljana, and the 2021 Prize for the Enhancement of Cultural Exchange between Europe and Taiwan, awarded by the Franco-Taiwanese Cultural Foundation.