Faculty

Wei Zhang

Professor

CONTACT

Office: FAO 213
Email

BIO

Dr. Zhang earned a Ph.D. from University of Minnesota, 1995. Her doctoral training consists of twentieth century continental philosophy, East-West Comparative Thought and East Asian Studies. Prior to Minnesota, she received her graduate training in classical Chinese language and texts from Chinese institutions. Her publications on comparative thought include two books: Heidegger, Rorty and Eastern Thinkers, Hermeneutics of Cross-Cultural Understanding (SUNY, 2006) and What is Enlightenment, Can China Answer Kant’s Question? (SUNY, 2010), and a number of articles, ‘Translating Dao, Cross-Cultural Translation as Hermeneutic Program of Edification’ (Rutledge 2015), ‘Heidegger’s Appropriation of Dao’ (Blackwell 2016), and ‘On the Way to a Common language, Heidegger’s Dialogue with a Japanese Visitor’ (Global Scholar Publications 2004). 

Dr. Zhang’s recent research interest in continental philosophy of medicine (Heidegger, Gadamer and Foucault) has led to the publication of a long essay: ‘Gadamer’s Phenomenological Hermeneutics of Medicine’ (ALEA International Journal of Phenomenology and Hermeneutics, 2010). She is currently working on such projects as ‘Heidegger’s Dasein Psychotherapy’ and ‘Foucault’s Discourses and Archeology of Medicine.”

Dr. Zhang’s research in classical Chinese textual traditions accumulated into a number of publications: ‘Could Cosmological Models Explain and Forecast Public Health and Weather Afflicted Ailments’ (Univ. of Hawaii Press, 2015)? ‘The Emergence of Classical Medicine in Ancient China and India’ (Roman & Littlefield, 2014), as well as a forthcoming article, ‘A Theory of Medical Cosmology of Qi-Energetic” (EASTM ‘East Asian Science, Technology and Medicine,’ Germany, 2016). Her translation of the first Chinese canonical medical treatises is now under the consideration of Columbia University Press.

In the last two years, her course offering ranges from ‘Buddhist Philosophy,’ ‘Intro to Chinese Philosophy,’ and ‘Medicine and Science in Ancient China,’ to the graduate seminar, ‘East-West Comparative Philosophy and Religion,’ ‘Confucian Seminar,’ and ‘Continental Philosophy of Medicine.’  In the past decade, she offered a number of courses for Religious Studies that include ‘Modern Buddhist Thought,’ ‘Buddhism and Postmodernism’ and ‘Chinese Religious Thought.’