Wei Zhang
Associate Professor
Contact
Office: CPR 0313
Phone: 813/974-1882
Email:
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Bio
Dr. Wei Zhang received her academic training from both Chinese and American universities at Yale University. She received her BA and a MA degree in Chinese Classical Studies (Language, Confucian Classics, Buddhist and Daoist Scriptures), and received her Ph.D. in East Asian Studies and Comparative Literature from the University of Minnesota in 1995.
Dr. Zhang taught at the Victorian University of New Zealand and Minnesota State University before joining the faculty of Religious Studies Department at University of South Florida in 2001. Her teaching curriculum includes the subjects of Asian Religions, Eastern Philosophy, and East-West Comparative Philosophy. Her most recent undergraduate courses include “Buddhism—Truths and Paths,” “Introducing Chinese Religions,” and graduate seminars in “Buddhist Ethics,” “Buddhism and Postmodernism,” “Daoism and Chinese Medicine,” and “Confucian Seminar.”
Dr. Zhang writes and publishes in the area of Asian philosophy of religion, comparative intellectual histories, and Mahayana Buddhist commentarial traditions. Her articles have appeared in Dao, a Journal of Comparative Philosophy, The Virginia Review of Asian Studies, and Journal of Chinese Philosophy. Her first book, Heidegger, Rorty and Eastern Thinkers – A Hermeneutics of Cross-Cultural Understanding was published by The State University of New York Press (SUNY) in 2006. Her second book, What is Enlightenment—Can China Answer Kant’s Question? is forthcoming from the SUNY press as well.
Dr. Zhang’s most recent research agenda includes Daoist traditions and Chinese religious and metaphysical medicine, as well as Buddhist philosophical literature in Mahayana commentary traditions. She has represented her recent research at national conferences and submitted some of her findings to academic journals.
Current Courses