Bryan W. Van Norden

Bryan W. Van Norden (born 1962) is a translator of Chinese philosophical texts, scholar of Chinese and comparative philosophy, and public intellectual. He is currently a Professor in the Philosophy Department and regularly teaches in the Chinese and Japanese Department at Vassar College.

Van Norden's ancestors can be traced back to the 17th century in North America. They fought on both the Loyalist and Revolutionary sides in the Revolutionary War and served with both the Union and Confederate armies in the Civil War. Van Norden's father was an officer in the Navy in World War II and was a corporate secretary at Kennametal, an industrial tool company. In high school, Van Norden's interest in China was stimulated by the Kung-fu craze following the success of Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon in 1973, and the opening of China to the West after the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. He became interested in philosophy while participating in interscholastic debate over the legitimacy of military conscription. At college, he studied both philosophy and Chinese language and culture. Although his interest in Chinese philosophy was discouraged by both philosophers and Sinologists, he decided to pursue Chinese philosophy in graduate school.

Van Norden is married with two children. Among his hobbies are poker, and he has played in the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.

Van Norden received his BA in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania in 1981. He attended Stanford University on a Mellon Fellowship and was awarded a PhD in philosophy in 1991. Before he joined the faculty at Vassar, Van Norden was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Vermont, and then at the University of Northern Iowa. Van Norden has been on the faculty at Vassar College since 1995, and has served as Chair of both the Philosophy Department and the Department of Chinese & Japanese. He has also been a Visiting Professor at Wuhan University in the spring of 2014 and the summer of 2016. He has been a member of both the Advisory Committee on Non-Western Philosophy and its Committee on the Status of Asian and Asian-American Philosophers and Philosophies of the American Philosophical Association. He is on the Editorial Board of Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews and the Advisory Board of the Philosophical Gourmet Report.

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