Edward Slingerland

Edward Slingerland is Distinguished University Scholar and Professor of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia, where he also holds adjunct appointments in Philosophy and Psychology. His research specialties and teaching interests include Warring States (5th-3rd c. B.C.E.) Chinese thought, religious studies, cognitive linguistics, ethics, and the relationship between the humanities and the natural sciences. Prof. Slingerland has published multiple academic monographs and edited volumes, as well as almost thirty refereed articles in top journals in a wide variety of fields, and is currently Director of the Cultural Evolution of Religion Research Consortium (CERC) and the Database of Religious History (DRH). His 2014 trade book, entitled Trying Not To Try: Ancient China, Modern Science and the Power of Spontaneity (Crown/Random House), integrates ancient Chinese and modern scientific understandings of spontaneity. His latest academic monograph concerns the problem of Orientalism in Asian Studies and body-mind concepts in early China.