Professor Chai is the founder and Series Editor of Daoism and the Human Experience (Bloomsbury, 2022-). His principal area of research is Ancient and Medieval Chinese Philosophy, focusing on Daoism. Secondary areas of research include: Metaphysics, Aesthetics, Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, and Comparative Philosophy.

1. Ancient and Medieval Chinese Philosophy (esp. Daoism)
2. Metaphysics
3. Aesthetics
4. Phenomenology
5. Hermeneutics
6. Comparative Philosophy

Books:

1. A Collated and Critical Study of the Xiang’er Commentary to the Laozi. Leiden: Brill, 2024
2. Daoist Resonances in Heidegger: Exploring a Forgotten Debt. London: Bloomsbury, 2022.
3. Reading Ji Kang’s Essays: Xuanxue in Early-Medieval China. London: Routledge, 2022.
4. Daoist Encounters with Phenomenology: Thinking Interculturally about Human Existence. London: Bloomsbury, 2020.
5. Dao Companion to Xuanxue [Neo-Daoism]. Cham: Springer, 2020.
6. Zhuangzi and the Becoming of Nothingness. Albany: SUNY Press, 2019.

Ten Most-Recent Papers:

1. “Zhuangzi and the Friendship of Non-Friendship.” Asian Studies, 13.2 (2025): 57-72.
2. “Jia Yi’s Rhapsody on an Owl: An Exercise in Daoist Self-Consolation.” Journal of Daoist Studies, 18 (2025): 18-38.
3. “The Art of Landscape Painting in Medieval China” in Chinese Philosophy and its Thinkers: From Ancient Times to the Present Day, vol. 2. Selusi Ambrogio and Dawid Rogacz, eds. London: Bloomsbury (2024): 161-169.
4. “Qingtan and Xuanxue” in Chinese Philosophy and its Thinkers: From Ancient Times to the Present Day, vol. 1. Selusi Ambrogio and Dawid Rogacz, eds. London: Bloomsbury (2024): 383-400.
5. “The Vitality of Nothingness in Jing Hao’s Notes on the Art of the Brush” in Varieties of Nothingness. Dean Rickles and Leslie Stein, eds. Asheville, N.C.: Chiron Publications (2024): 237-260.
6. “Wuwei in the Lüshi Chunqiu.” Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy, 22.3 (2023): 437-455.
7. “Martin Buber, Daoism, and Interhuman Philosophy.” Asian Studies, 11.1 (2023): 245-266.
8. “Herder and Daoism on Touching the Spirit of Sculpture” in The Being of Negation in Post-Kantian Philosophy. Gregory Moss, ed. Dordrecht: Springer (2022): 181-190.
9. “Zhuangzi on No-Emotion” in Dao Companion to the Zhuangzi. Kim-Chong Chong and Kai-Yuan Cheng, eds. Dordrecht: Springer (2022): 199-215.
10. “The Role of Nature in the Huang-Lao Silk Texts” in Environmental Philosophy and East Asia: Nature, Time, Responsibility. Hiroshi Abe, Matthias Fritsch, and Mario Wenning, eds. London: Routledge (2022): 19-36.