About our staff

I work in early and medieval Chinese philosophy and intellectual history, specializing in the history of ethics, moral psychology and emotions.

Currently, I am Senior Researcher and Co-Project Director of  PAIXUE, an ERC-funded, cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary research project dedicated to classicising learning in medieval Chinese and Byzantine thought and learned culture. Prior to this, I was Assistant Professor in the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Toronto and Visiting Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Central European University Budapest.

Associate Editor, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice

• The PAIXUE Project

• “What makes us human? Philosophical and religious perspectives in China and the West” (CEU Summer University course, 2016) 

• “The human and the sciences of nature: Chinese and comparative perspectives" (CEU-Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation Lecture Series)

Summary of research interests

• Asia

• Ancient Civilisations
• Comparative & Global History
• Culture
• Ideas
• Religion

• Antiquity
• Medieval & Renaissance

I work in the fields of premodern Chinese philosophy, religion and intellectual history (Warring States to 12th century), with a focus on early and middle period Chinese ethics, moral psychology, and conceptions and practices of the self. Much of my work has been dedicated to the problem of emotions in traditional China – how they were conceived phenomenally, what they meant for human cognition, and what role they played in the development of ethical norms and cultural practice. 

My book, The Emotions in Early Chinese Philosophy (Oxford 2017), examines the philosophical debates surrounding the emotions in early China (c. 5th-3rd c. BCE), situating the intense preoccupation with the ethical, psychological and physical aspects of emotions during this period within emergent ideas about the human body, the political order, and the cosmos. 

My ongoing projects include a sequel to my first book, which continues my investigation of emotions into the imperial period through the Tang and Song periods (8th-12th centuries), and which I am working under the auspices of the PAIXUE project. I am also co-editing with Douglas Cairns a volume on emotions in ancient Greek and early Chinese philosophy, medicine and literature. 

'Classicizing learning in Medieval imperial systems: Cross-cultural approaches to Byzantine "Paideia" and Tang/Song Xue 學” (PAIXUE). (2017-2022).