Daoism’s transcultural and transhistorical resonances

Date

22 April 2026

Venue

BLOC Cinema Arts One Building QMUL

About

The Inaugural Research Workshop of ‘Daoism, Cinema and Wellbeing: Meditative Cinema’

This first workshop entitled “Daoism’ Transcultural and transhistorical resonances” foregrounds the philosophical and aesthetic connections and exchanges between Daoist thought and broader philosophical traditions across Asia, the West, and beyond. It invites participants, from various disciplines, to examine the historical and contemporary networks through which ideas, artistic practices, and cultural forms circulate, so to rethink film ontology, aesthetics, and ethics as inherently transcultural and transhistorical projects rather than traditions bounded by geography or nation. In doing so, it also invites participants to consider how a renewed, de-Westernised philosophical and theoretical approach can deepen decolonial understandings of ecology and wellbeing, thereby contributing to new forms of cinematic world-making.

We will also address methodological questions central to comparative film philosophy, including how to navigate cultural specificity without falling into essentialism and how to articulate meaningful conceptual bridges across traditions. The discussion further considers the decolonial significance of such an approach, exploring how transcultural frameworks can unsettle entrenched Western paradigms and open space for alternative aesthetic genealogies.

This first workshop also marks the launch of CAVe – Cinema, Asian Philosophes and Visual Ecologies Research Hub in the School of Arts at QMUL.

Schedule

10:00 – 10:30 am
Registration

10:30 – 10:45 am
Introduction

Kiki Tianqi Yu, Principal Investigator of “Daoism, Cinema and Wellbeing” project
Reader in Cinematic Art, Queen Mary University of London

10:45 – 11:40 am
Keynote Speech

David Chai – Associate Professor in Philosophy, the Chinese University of Hong Kong
Do Cinematic Images Exist in the World? A Daoist Response

11:50 – 1:00pm
Panel 1: Intermedial and transhistorical Perspectives – Chaired by Anat Pick

Paul Gladston – 91ɫ��Ƭ Judith Neilson Chair Professor of Contemporary Art
Dis-/Continuing Traditions: Chinese Contemporary Video Art and the Persistent Traces of Daoism

Kiki Tianqi Yu – Reader in Cinematic Art, Queen Mary University of London
Nothingness as Film (Me)Ontology and Breath as Cinematic Engagement: Heidegger, Irigaray and Daoism

1:00 – 2:00 pm
Lunch for speakers

2:00 – 3:30 pm
Panel 2: Daoism’s Global Resonances – Chaired by David Chai

Rob Stone – Emeritus Professor of Film Studies, University of Birmingham
Adding a Transcendentalist Imperative (breathe in) to Daoist Meditative Practice (breathe out) in American Independent Cinema

Anat Pick – Professor of Film, Queen Mary University of London
A Few Thoughts on Simone Weil’s Daoist Inclinations

Yuehan Liu – Lecturer in Film, Chengdu University of Technology
Forests, Spirits and Tree Burial: Revisiting Daoism and Animism in Japanese Cinema

3:30 – 4:00 pm
Coffee and Tea

4:00 – 5:10 pm
Panel 3: Confucianism- Buddhism-Daoism dialogues – Chaired by Paul Gladston

Victor Fan – Professor of Film and Media Philosophy, King’s College London
Ethics: The Ontologico-Technological Double Bind in Neo-Confucianism

David Fleming – Senior Lecturer in Film Studies, University of Stirling
The Screen Dao of Confucius(es): Regarding the Lives, Deaths, and Afterlife Dialogues of China’s paramount film philosophers

5:10 – 5:50 pm
Roundtable Discussion: doing film philosophy comparatively and decolonial challenges – all speakers

Related JNCCA events and publications

Roundtable Discussion: Contemporary Chinese Ink Painting & the Persistence of Daoism

Exhibition: In-/Visible Spectrums: Contemporary Video Art from the Sinosphere

News Article: Global Dialogue, Local Insight: Avant-Garde Meets Neo-Confucian Thought

Paul Gladston and Lynne Howarth-Gladston (2018), ‘Of Nühua (“women’s painting”) and the Absenting of Ink: A Critical Meditation on Works by the Artist Fu Xiaotong,’ in Fan F; Wang C (eds.), New Debates on Ink Art: The Genealogy of Ink Art and Its Conceptual Changes – The Historical Identity Dimensions, Wuhan Art Museum – Hebei Fine Arts Publishing House, Wuhan - Hebei, pp. 432-488

Paul Gladston (2024), ‘Dis-/Continuing Traditions: Chinese Contemporary Art, Polylogic Translation and the Traces of Confucian-literati Culture’, in Haiping Yan, Haina Jin and Paul Gladston eds., , London and New York: Routledge, 217-234 [which features discussion and critical analysis of the work of Xiao Lu].

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