Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University
Books that Changed Humanity: Laozi, Daodejing
Dr Benjamin Penny, ANU
5:30pm – 7:00pm, Friday, 12 May 2017
SRWB Theatrette 2.02, Sir Roland Wilson Building, Australian National University, Canberra
Books that Changed Humanity is an initiative of the Humanities Research Centre, based at the Australian National University. The HRC invites experts to introduce and lead discussion of major texts from a variety of cultural traditions, all of which have informed the way we understand ourselves both individually and collectively as human beings.
Join us as Dr Benjamin Penny introduces and discusses the classic Taoist text Daodejing [Tao Te Ching] by Laozi [Lao Tzu].
Open to the public, registration encouraged: http://hrc.anu.edu.au/events/books-changed-humanity-laozi-daodejing-lao-tzu-tao-te-ching
Dr Benjamin Penny is a historian of religions in China who has worked on medieval China, the nineteenth century and contemporary times. His most recent book is The Religion of Falun Gong (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012) and he is currently working on a monograph concerning expatriate scholarship in Shanghai after the first Opium War, as well as co-editing East Asian History. After studying at the Universities of Sydney, Cambridge, Peking and the ANU, Penny held a post-doctoral fellowship also at the ANU before moving to the Humanities Research Centre. Between 1999 and 2005, he worked as the first Executive Officer of the Herbert and Valmae Freilich Foundation, and from 2003 to 2004 also held a research fellowship at the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research. Penny was appointed to the Division of Pacific and Asian History in October 2005 and in January 2010 became the Deputy Director of the new School of Culture, History and Language in the ANU’s College of Asia and the Pacific. In June 2015 he was appointed as the Director of the Australian Centre on China in the World, ANU, and head of the China Everyday research stream.