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Information about jobs in Asia?

Brian Leiter

Following up on this post, readers might also benefit from information about how to find out what jobs are available in Asia. It might also be useful to hear about the state of academic freedom in the various Asian countries for which there is job market information, especially China (which continues to invest in higher education, but in which, as I understand it, all universities remain under Party control and in which syllabi are vetted by Party officials) and also India (where new private universities have proliferated, but where academic freedom has deteriorated under Modi).

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9 responses to “Information about jobs in Asia?”

  1. Alexander Lash

    I’ve been teaching at a public university in Taiwan (in a literature department) since 2020, and have been very happy that I made the move. The pay is lower than would be the case in equivalent US jobs, but I find I can live here quite comfortably. We don’t have US-style tenure, but we do have strong job protection and academic freedom.

    Unfortunately, there’s no easily accessible listing service that’s universally used, as far as I know. I only found out about the position I now hold because someone in my PhD program knew someone from the department and posted the ad on Facebook.

    Reply
  2. Ben Cross

    I work at Wuhan University, where I teach and write political philosophy. Our current hiring pattern includes recruiting two international postdocs per year. As it so happens, we have just completed this year’s international postdoc recruitment, but I expect we will continue this again next year. The postdoc contract is for two years, and does not require any teaching during that time (although teaching is optional). There are also opportunities for renewing a postdoc contract and being promoted to faculty.

    I don’t want to make generalizations about what other philosophy departments in China are like, but here are some features of my own experience:
    – None of my syllabi, including those for political philosophy classes, have ever needed preapproval from party members before teaching.
    – I have never been told not to publish or teach on any particular topic. This is not to say that there is literally nothing I could try to publish or teach that would not generate such a reaction, but only that this hasn’t yet happened to me. For what it’s worth, I have published on issues to do with Chinese politics in the past, although I can’t claim that this is one of my primary research interests.
    – Official talks by visiting speakers are subject to approval by an external committee that is meant to monitor talks for political (in)correctness. 99% of the time, this committee rubber stamps everything.
    – Several of my colleagues work on issues relating to feminism, gender, and sexuality, which, curiously enough, seem to me to be the most sensitive philosophical topics in China at the moment.

    For anyone interested, my colleague, Peter Finocchiaro, wrote a more detailed reflection a few years ago about what working in philosophy in China is like: https://philosopherscocoon.com/2019/11/08/whats-it-like-to-be-a-foreign-philosopher-in-mainland-china/

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  3. AS

    I can’t say much about Mainland China, but can share a few words about Hong Kong. In terms of academic freedom, I would say that issues are unlikely to arise unless one’s work and extramural speech directly touch on issues of say, China’s sovereignty, Taiwan, and the like. I don’t think there is any attempt by powers that be to direct the kind of philosophical work that’s being done at HK universities.

    In terms of the job market: the jobs are generally advertised at the major international job boards – Times Higher Education, jobs.ac.uk, Euraxess, etc. There is no specific job season, and the documents required are typical – CV, letter, possibly research or teaching statement, teaching evals. It is important to note that HK universities are very metrics-driven, which means that candidates with publications in journals that are not just widely considered good within the discipline but also highly-ranked in Scopus (sigh) will have a distinct advantage. Along similar lines, in HK they have a research evaluation cycle similar to UK’s REF, so if you have four strong articles in major journals during the relevant five-year period, that’s very good. Also, all faculty at HK universities are required to apply for territory-wide research grants (sigh again), so showing that you have a research project in the pipeline would also be an advantage. The jobs, if you can get one, are very good – teaching load comparable to R1 universities in the States (often actually less), 6-year tenure clock, very high pay, and lots of research support.

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  4. Gina Joe

    Regarding mainland China, I can confirm much of what the previous two posters have said. I have been teaching at a top university and top philosophy department in mainland China since 2020, and have been very happy that I made the move.

    In mainland China, there is US-style tenure, with strong job protection and academic freedom. Top departments (in alphabetical order: Fudan, Peking, Wuhan, Zhejiang) also have top students, especially perhaps at Peking University, which is together with Tsinghua one of the two leading universities in the country, so they get the absolute top crop from the national university entry exam.

    I found my job on PhilJobs. Some but not all jobs are advertised at the major international job boards. Top departments are constanly hiring, and the job market remains generally better in terms of available positions than elsewhere. There are advertised faculty positions at various levels as well as postdocs. See e.g.:

    https://philjobs.org/job/show/31021
    https://philjobs.org/job/show/30770

    For interested non-Chinese, it is a good idea to try to reach out and learn through connections about opportunities in mainland China. There is no specific job season, and the documents required are the usual ones. Like HK universities, mainland universities are increasingly metrics-driven. Publications in international top journals are important. For international faculty members, research project funding is less important. At top departments, teaching load is comparable to R1 universities in the States (often actually less), 6-year tenure clock and lots of research support, very little admin to do, strong admin support.

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  5. Christopher Devlin Brown

    I am an associate professor in mainland China, and have a slightly different impression than Ben (though I have not personally been negatively affected in any way). To some extent, I think this sort of thing varies from department to department. Anyone who wishes to hear more is free to email me at christopher.devlin.brown@gmail.com.

    Reply
  6. previously in singapore

    If anyone is thinking of Singapore, they might benefit from first reading the acknowledgements section (page xi) of this book: https://books.google.fr/books?id=Te78EAAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&hl=fr&pg=PR11#v=onepage&q&f=false
    It’s about one particular university, but appears to generalise well across the city state. A recent survey on academic freedom is also indicative of deeper problems: https://www.academia.sg/academic-freedom-survey-2021/

    Reply
    1. Brian Leiter

      Those “acknowledgments” are pretty pissy and devoid of substance–I wonder whether the author wasn’t denied tenure or has some other axe to grind? He was at Nanyang Technological University, so perhaps as a humanist the environment was unfriendly. But what he says bears no relationship to my extended visits in Singapore at the National University of Singapore, to put it mildly. I have been impressed by both the quality and vitality of intellectual life in both the law and philosophy faculties. So I wouldn’t put any stock in that petty sniping.

      The survey is worth looking at, and I’m familiar with it. The response rate, I should note, was very low. My own experience talking to folks here is that core academic freedom (freedom in research and teaching) is in good shape overall.

      Reply
  7. Boris Babic

    I have held tenure-track (and now tenured) jobs in Singapore and Hong Kong, as well as in Toronto, which is my basis of comparison. I have never had anyone ask anything about the content or structure of any of my syllabi. This includes courses I have taught across many departments, including the philosophy department, the computer science department, the data science institute, the law school, and two different business schools. Likewise, I have never felt any kind of pressure whatsoever about what to publish or not publish. 

    As has been mentioned, I think our jobs here are excellent — quite extraordinary, actually — and I can hardly imagine a better academic environment. The government is aiming to develop Hong Kong into a global hub for higher education, and the South China Morning Post recently wrote an article about our university president’s commitment to the humanities, https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/education/article/3346266/hong-kong-university-president-vows-boost-humanities-amid-ai-push-elsewhere. 

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  8. Elise Marlowe

    Just to share a personal observation on the state of academic freedom in mainland China: I spent seven years in a top philosophy department there. My sense is that, at least at my institution, oversight regarding what we could say or teach was surprisingly relaxed for most non-Chinese faculty. It seems to me that the level of scrutiny mostly depends on how much influence a topic might have on the broader public, as well as how difficult the material is to monitor.

    Because English-taught philosophy courses typically only draw a small, niche group of students and faculty, and the material tends to be highly abstract, there isn’t much motivation to police them closely—and doing so would be quite difficult anyway. As a result, we faced very few practical restrictions in our day-to-day teaching.

    That said, being overtly vocal about sensitive Chinese political issues in public spaces will certainly still invite trouble. I’d also agree with Ben’s point that touching on gender issues can sometimes spark pushback from students and create a tense dynamic.

    Additionally, international scholars tend to face far less social pressure than my local Chinese colleagues. The general assumption that you aren’t completely fluent in Chinese, combined with your different cultural background, essentially gives you a pass on many local social norms and expectations.

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