On-cho Ng

I specialize in the intellectual history of late imperial China. With abiding interests in Confucianism as a dynamic and multifaceted tradition, my work is situated at the intersection of various fields: history, philosophy and religious studies. Apart from Cheng-Zhu Confucianism in the Early Qing: Li Guangdi and Qing Learning (2001), and Mirroring the Past: The Writing and Use of History in Imperial China (2005), I have edited several volumes, and published dozens of book chapters and articles in a variety of academic periodicals, including Journal of the History of Ideas, Journal of Chinese Religions, Philosophy East and West, Journal of Chinese Philosophy and Journal of World History. I am completing two books. The first is tentatively entitled, “Qing Thought as a Period Concept: Intellectual Trends in Late Imperial China.” I just published a 15,000-word essay, “Qing Philosophy,” in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2019):1-55 (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qing-philosophy/), which is a blueprint of the book. The other book is on the jinwen (New Script) classical commentaries in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century China. While the work is primarily an investigation of the distinct hermeneutical disciplines and philosophical concerns of a Confucian exegetical tradition, it also explores the interpretive possibilities opened up by contemporary Western theories of reading.

Here at Penn State, I was the founding Head of the Asian Studies Department, serving from 2012 to 2021. I also work with various academic publishers and organizations in multiple editorial and administrative capacities. I am co-editor of the book series on ‘History of Chinese Thought,’ National University of Taiwan Press. I serve as Associate Editor and Book Review Editor with the Journal of Chinese Philosophy, and sit on the editorial board of Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy.  I am vice-president of the International Association for Yijing Studies (Beijing), and a member of the Steering Committee the ‘Confucian Tradition Group’ of the American Academy of Religion. For almost two decades, I have been chairing and co-chairing the University Seminar on Neo-Confucian Studies at Columbia University.