Yuchen Liang (China)

My research concerns mostly the cultural distinctiveness of ancient Chinese thoughts in comparison to both non-Chinese and contemporary Chinese thoughts. Content-wise I work on classical Chinese philosophy, especially pre-Qin Confucianism and Chan Buddhism, as well as the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, on ontological topics such as life and death, existence and nothingness. I am currently studying for a MSc in Digital Scholarship in order to incorporate digital technologies into my philosophical research. My goal at Oxford is to develop a digitally-informed way to study fragmental and aphoristic Chinese classics such as the Analects and the Tao Te Ching with analogy of social media posts, as both types of texts were not intended as systematic theoretical writings. I will also reflect on the implementation of digital technologies in philosophical research itself, evaluating its efficacy and appropriateness. 

My hometown is Yangzhou, China. It is an ancient city (founded in 486 BCE) famous for Yangzhou fried rice, a staple in most overseas Chinese restaurants. Before coming to Oxford I lived in China, Singapore, the US, as well as Germany. I earned my BA in philosophy and German at the University of Michigan and my PhD in philosophy at Emory University. 

In the spirits of Zhuangzi and Aristotle I like to wander, so you will definitely see me on the old streets of Oxford a lot.