Academy Members

Buljan Ivana

Academic titles:

• Doctor of Science

Institutions:

• Associate professor – Department of Sinology, Department of Asian Studies at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb

Membership in the Academy:

• Associate Member – Department of Philological Sciences (5/21/2026 – …)

Ivana Buljan, born in Zagreb in 1976, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sinology, within the Department of Asian Studies at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb. In 1995, she graduated from the XV Gymnasium (MIOC) and the Vatroslav Lisinski Secondary School of Music. She received her B.A. degree in Philosophy and Croatology from the Faculty of Croatian Studies, University of Zagreb, in 2001. Her undergraduate thesis, entitled The Problem of Becoming an Individual in the Work of Søren Kierkegaard, was published in the journal Filozofska istraživanja.

From 2003 to 2005, as a scholarship recipient of the People’s Republic of China, she studied Chinese language at Central China Normal University in Wuhan and pursued postgraduate studies in Chinese philosophy at Peking University. After returning from China, she completed the three-year non-degree programme in Sinology at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, within a single academic year. In 2008, she enrolled in the doctoral programme at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb. During her doctoral studies, she further advanced her knowledge of Chinese through a number of language scholarships at Fudan University in Shanghai, Tianjin University, and the University of Ljubljana. She also participated in international philological workshops devoted to the reading and textual analysis of classical Chinese sources at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Leiden, Zurich, and Prague. She continued her doctoral research at Ghent University as a recipient of a doctoral scholarship from the Flemish BOF (Special Research Fund). In 2013, she obtained a dual Ph.D., earning a doctorate in Oriental Languages and Cultures from Ghent University and a doctorate in Chinese Philosophy from the University of Zagreb, both awarded summa cum laude.

From 2008 to 2013, she was employed as a Junior Research Fellow, and from 2013 to 2015 as a Senior Teaching and Research Assistant at the Department of Indology and Far Eastern Studies, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb. In 2015, she was appointed Assistant Professor, and in 2021 she was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor in the field of Humanities, discipline of Philology, specialization in Sinology.

Since the establishment of the non-degree Sinology programme at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, she has played an active role in its teaching and development. She introduced courses in Classical Chinese, Classical Chinese Philosophy, Chinese Culture and Civilization, as well as philological seminars devoted to the reading of classical Chinese texts. Since 2015, she has served as Head of the Department of Sinology, and since 2017 as Deputy Head of the Department of Indology and Far Eastern Studies (renamed the Department of Asian Studies in 2024) at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb. She also participated in the design and establishment of the regular degree programme in Sinology at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, which was launched in 2024.

Following the completion of her doctoral studies, she has, on several occasions, held international research fellowships as a visiting scholar at foreign universities and research institutions, where she also delivered invited lectures. She conducted research at the Shanghai University of International Business and Economics (2017, 2019), at the Nishan World Center for Confucian Studies (China Confucius Foundation) in Qufu as part of the Qilu Visiting Research Program (2025), and at National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei (2026) within an international research project funded by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange (CCKF).

She is the principal investigator of the international research project Worry and Trouble: Conceptualizing Anxiety in Early Chinese Philosophy (早期中國哲學中的憂患：重新定義情感困擾), funded by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange (CCKF), with Prof. Dr. Hsien-Chung Lee from National Taiwan University as co-investigator. She has also led the research projects Counterfactual Reasoning in Premodern Asian Thought: China, India, and Japan; Fear and Anxiety in Asian Philosophy: China, India, and Japan; Non-Human Animals in Classical Philosophy: Greece, India, and China; and Philosophical Approaches to Work: Classical Greece, India, and China, funded through research grants from the University of Zagreb. She has participated in the international research projects Modern and Contemporary Taiwanese Philosophy and Taiwanese Modern Confucians and Their Philosophical Contribution to Asian Modernization. She has also participated and continues to participate in several national research projects.

Her research focuses on early China, particularly the Warring States and Han periods. Her scholarly work develops along three closely interconnected lines: the critical translation of classical Chinese texts from Classical Chinese; philological research into the authorship, dating, and textual transmission of classical Chinese works, including archaeologically excavated manuscripts; and the philosophical reconstruction and interpretation of early Chinese thought. Within the latter area, she is particularly concerned with political philosophy, theories of bodily cultivation, the relationship between language and thought, and the ethical dimensions of human relations with non-human animals. Her research combines philological precision with philosophical and historical interpretation of early Chinese sources.

A central place in her scholarly work is occupied by her research on and translation of the Chunqiu fanlu (Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals). The results of this research have been published in leading international journals in Sinology, including Monumenta Serica (Q1), Asian Studies (Q1), Asian Philosophy (Q1), and the Journal of Asian and African Studies (Q2). One of her articles on the Chunqiu fanlu is currently being translated into Chinese, and in 2026 her scholarly work was featured in an interview published in the journal Waiguo Hanxue (Foreign Sinology).

She is the author of the monograph On Maintaining Power: The Theory of Rulership in Chapters 18–22 of the Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals (FF Press, 2021). Her forthcoming book, Man and the World in Classical Chinese Thought: Essays in Chinese Philosophy (HFD, 2026), is currently in press and is also being translated into Chinese. She is the author of the encyclopaedia entry “Dong Zhongshu” in the Database of Religious History at the University of British Columbia, as well as thirty-eight entries on Chinese philosophy in the Philosophical Lexicon published by the Miroslav Krleža Institute of Lexicography (2012).

She served as a member of the Editorial Board of the journal Asian Studies and, since 2024, has been the Sinology Editor of Bibliotheca Orientalis. She co-edited the special issue of Synthesis philosophica devoted to Chinese philosophy (2014), and, on the occasion of the launch of the regular degree programme in Sinology, edited the thematic section “On the Transformation of Things” in Književna smotra (2024). She serves as a reviewer for leading international journals, including Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy, Philosophy East and West, and Asian Studies, and has reviewed numerous scholarly monographs published both in Croatia and abroad.

Alongside her research and teaching, she actively contributes to the development and international recognition of Chinese philosophy. She is one of the founding members of the European Association of Chinese Philosophy. From 2021 to 2023, she served on the Executive Board of the Croatian Philosophical Society, and since 2024 she has been a member of the Executive Board of the Confucian International Association, headquartered in Beijing. She co-organized the international conferences East–West: Comparative Philosophy and World Situation (Cres, 2021) and Asia in Context: Asia and Languages (Zagreb, 2024).

She has delivered two keynote lectures and numerous invited lectures at international institutions, including in Bochum, Shanghai, Beijing, Prague, and Ljubljana. She regularly presents her research at international conferences in Sinology and philosophy and has taught at foreign universities within the Erasmus and CEEPUS mobility programmes.