The Divinity School is pleased to announce a public lecture by Brook A. Ziporyn entitled The Mind and the Mindlessness of Heaven and Earth: Teleology and Consciousness in Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucianism. This will be Prof. Ziporyn's inaugural lecture as the Mircea Eliade Professor of Chinese Religion, Philosophy, and Comparative Thought in the Divinity School and the College. 

Monday, April 3, 4:30-6:00pm, Swift Lecture Hall (3rd floor) -- A reception will follow

A scholar of ancient and medieval Chinese religion and philosophy, Professor Ziporyn is the Mircea Eliade Professor of Chinese Religion, Philosophy, and Comparative Thought in the Divinity School and the College. He received his BA in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago, and his PhD from the University of Michigan.  

Ziporyn is the author of numerous works including Prolegomena to the Study of Li  (SUNY Press, 2012); and  Beyond Oneness and Difference: Li and Coherence in Chinese Buddhist Thought and its Antecedents  (SUNY Press, 2013).   His seventh book, Emptiness and Omnipresence: An Essential Introduction to Tiantai Buddhism, was  published by Indiana University Press in 2016.   He is currently working on a cross-cultural inquiry into the themes of death, time and perception, tentatively entitled  Against Being Here Now,  as well as a book-length exposition of atheism as a form of religious and mystical experience in the intellectual histories of Europe, India and China.  His translation of  Zhuangzi: The Complete Writings  was published by Hackett in 2020, and his translation of the  Daodejing  was published by Liveright Books and the Norton Library in 2023.