Dr. Mercedes Valmisa

Bild von Mercedes Valmisa

Internationales Kolleg für Geisteswissenschaftliche Forschung "Schicksal, Freiheit und Prognose. Bewältigungsstrategien in Ostasien und Europa"
 Hartmannstr. 14
91052 Erlangen




Home Institution: East Asian Studies Department, Princeton University


IKGF Visiting Fellow October 2017 – September 2018

(Last change of profile by end of stay)

IKGF Research Project:

Adaptive Agency


Curriculum Vitae

I am a scholar of early Chinese Philosophy with strong interests in Global Philosophy and the interdisciplinary study of the Ancient World. My research integrates philosophy, intellectual history, literary and manuscript studies, archaeology, and material culture. I am originally from Spain, where I studied Philosophy (Seville, 2005) and East Asian Studies (Madrid, 2008). I lived in Beijing for one year, and in Taipei for three years, where I obtained my M.A. in Chinese Philosophy from National Taiwan University (Taipei, 2011) before moving to the USA to complete my Ph.D. in East Asian Studies (Early Chinese Philosophy) at Princeton University (Princeton, 2017). My book manuscript on Adaptive Agency explores an exceptional philosophy of action by analyzing its conceptual, literary, epistemological, and practical features across the early Chinese textual corpus, and comparing it with other models of agency also advocated in the early period. Apart from agency and Chinese philosophy, I am interested in questions of freedom, autonomy, uncertainty, and fate, as well as in the comparative study of early civilizations, religio-political ideologies of power, and textual practices. Starting in August 2018, I am Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Andrew W. Mellon Diversity Fellow at Gettysburg College, PA.

Selected Publications

Articles

Chinese translation of "The 'Sinological Challenge' to Chinese Philosophy: A Response from a Post-Disciplinary Perspective," in: Zhongguo zhexue yu wenhua 15 (in preparation).
2016 "La Espontaneidad no es un Valor en el Zhuangzi," in: Daoismo: Interpretaciones Contemporáneas, ed. by Paulina Rivero Weber, Mexico City: Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, UNAM.
2015 "Beyond our Control? Two Responses to Uncertainty and Fate in Early China," in: New Visions of the Zhuangzi, ed. by Livia Kohn, Cambridge (Mass.): Three Pines Press, pp. 1-22.