Faculty

AMY OLBERDING

Amy Olberding Assistant Professor
Ph.D., Hawai'i
Research areas: Chinese Philosophy, Roman Philosophy, Comparative Philosophy

614 Dale Hall Tower
(405) 325-6834
aolberding@ou.edu
office hours

My research interests are concentrated on pre-Qin Chinese philosophy.  My work in this area further divides into two particular research foci:  philosophical approaches to mortality and the ethics of the Analects.  Within the former, I have been primarily interested in Confucian efforts to render bereavement an occasion for ethical mastery, as well as responses to these efforts by critics of Confucianism.  Within the latter, I am particularly interested in developing accounts of the ethics of the Analects that foreground the text’s narrative depictions of moral exemplars.  My current major project is to develop an account that employs exemplarist virtue theory as a model for understanding the Analects.

In addition to early Chinese philosophy, I occasionally also work on Roman philosophy and Seneca is a particular favorite.  Here too my focus has largely been on therapeutic aspects of Roman philosophical treatments of mortality.

Recent courses:

Phil 1203 – Human Destiny (Fall 2007)
Phil 1223 – Introduction to Asian Philosophy (Fall 2008)
Phil 3033 – Philosophy and Literature (Spring 2008)
Phil 3303 – East Asian Philosophy (Spring 2008)
Phil 3343 – Chinese Philosophy (Spring 2009)
Phil 3743 – Feminist Philosophy (Fall 2008)
Phil 3811 – Writing Workshop for Philosophy Majors (Spring 2009)
Phil 4900/5900 – Early Chinese Philosophy (Fall 2006)
Phil 6393 – Seminar in Chinese Philosophy (Fall 2007)

Award:

2009-2010 Howard Foundation Fellowship for "Exemplarism and the Analects"

Recent essays:

Click here for full CV (.doc)

“’I Know Not “Seems”’:  Grief for Parents in the Analects.”  Forthcoming in Mortality in Traditional Chinese Thought, Amy Olberding and Philip J. Ivanhoe (eds.), State University of New York Press. (.doc)

“’Ascending the Hall’:  Demeanor and Moral Improvement in the Analects.”  Forthcoming in Philosophy East and West (January 2010). (.doc) 

“Dreaming of the Duke of Zhou:  Exemplarism and the Analects.”  Forthcoming in Journal of Chinese Philosophy (December 2008). (.doc)

“’A little throat cutting in the meantime’:  Seneca’s Violent Imagery,” Philosophy and Literature 32(2008):130-144. (.doc)

“Sorrow and the Sage:  Grief in the Zhuangzi,” Dao:  A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 6:4(2007):339-359. (.doc)