Baofu, Peter 1962-

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BAOFU, Peter 1962-

PERSONAL:

Born June 13, 1962, in Saigon, Vietnam; naturalized U.S. citizen; son of Phu Chi-Thanh (in business) and Dang Nhi (in business). Ethnicity: "Chinese." Education: University of Nevada, B.A. (summa cum laude; economics) and B.A. (with high distinction; philosophy), both 1986; postgraduate studies at University of Illinois (economics), 1986-87; Georgetown University, TFAS Crtfe. (comparative economic and political systems), 1987; Northwestern University, M.A. (political science), 1988; Johns Hopkins University, M.A. (philosophy), 1990; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ph.D. (political science), 1996.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Los Angeles, CA. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Edwin Mellen Press, P.O. Box 450, Lewiston, NY 14092. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Educator, researcher, and writer. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, teaching assistant, 1990; Quinsigamond Community College, Worcester, MA, adjunct professor, 1991; Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, teaching fellow, 1993-95; Eastern Mediterranean University, Gazimagusa, Turkey, visiting associate professor, 1998-99; Bocconi University, Milan, Italy, visiting professor, 2001; U.S. Department of Agriculture, adjunct instructor at Graduate School, 2002; Eastern New Mexico University, Portales, New Mexico, visiting assistant professor, 2003; University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, semester-at-sea program visiting lecturer, 2005. Guest speaker at professional associations, universities, and corporations, including University of Hong Kong, 1993; Emmanuel College, 1995; CNA Corporation, 1997; University of Central Oklahoma, 1998; Urban Institute, 2000; Howard University, 2001; Prairie View A & M University, 2002; Commission for Labor Cooperation, 2002; Eastern New Mexico University, 2003; Metropolitan College of New York, 2004; and University of Pittsburgh, 2004. Research assistant at Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC, 1987; consultant to Urban Institute, Washington, DC, 2000. Mediator and judge in American Bar Association competitions 2001, 2002; DePaul Connectivity Project, mediator, 2002. Performer in dance concerts, including All You Need Is Love, From the Near by Far Away, and two pieces with Mikhail Baryshnikov and others: Exit and Satisfyin' Lover.

MEMBER:

American Political Science Association.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Summer scholar, Institute on Comparative Political and Economic Systems, 1987; Claude R. Lambe fellow, Institute for Humane Studies, 1986-87; Fellow, American Institute for Economic Research, 1987-88; Scholar, Leopold Schepp Foundation, 1986-91; Fulbright scholar in Hong Kong and China, 1993-94.

WRITINGS:

The Future of Human Civilization, two volumes, Edwin Mellen Press (Lewiston, NY), 2000.

The Future of Capitalism and Democracy, University Press of America (Lanham, MD), 2002.

The Future of Post-Human Consciousness, Edwin Mellen Press (Lewiston, NY), 2004.

Beyond Democracy to Post-Democracy: Conceiving a Better Model of Governance to Supersede Democracy, two volumes, Edwin Mellen Press (Lewistown, NY), 2004.

Beyond Captialism to Post-Capitalism: Conceiving a Better Model of Governance to Supercede Capitalism, Edwin Mellen Press (Lewistown, NY), 2005.

Contributor of chapters to The Challenges and Opportunities of Globalization at the Dawn of the Millennium, edited by A. Hailu, Howard University (Washington, DC); and Race and Xenophobia in the United States and Europe, Department of African Studies, Howard University (Washington, DC). Contributor of articles and reviews to periodicals, including Journal of Social Economics, Share the World Resources, Chase, Economic History Services, Global Forums, Track 3 Connections, and Vested Owl online.

WORK IN PROGRESS:

Beyond Civilization.

SIDELIGHTS:

Peter Baofu told CA: "Being a bookworm may not sound elegant, but I have always been attracted to the world of ideas. My numerous years in quite a number of different universities illustrates this intellectual tendency, which constitutes a starting point for my interest in a writing career.

"What I hope to achieve in my scholarly books is outrageously ambitious; that is, to understand the nature of civilization and its fate in the entire cosmos and beyond, into 'multiverses,' be it about the distant past, the temporal present, or the remote future.

"My first breakthrough came from a 'post-human' vision. The term originated from my vision of what I originally coined as the 'post-human consciousness' in my doctoral dissertation, 'After Postmodernity.' The dissertation was scheduled to be published in 1998, but it was revised and published in two volumes titled The Future of Human Civilization in 1999.

"One of many deep questions I asked in the book was whether or not human civilization could sustain. My answer was that humans would likely become extinct at some distant point (in what I originally called 'after-postmodernity'), to be superseded eventually by 'post-humans' (for example, cyborgs, thinking machines, thinking robots, and genetically altered superior beings), just as the dominance of dinosaurs on earth suffered the same fate many million years before. So, human civilization, from the beginning to its historical end in the future, can be summarized in four linked words: pre-modernity, modernity, postmodernity, and after-postmodernity.

"In The Future of Capitalism and Democracy, I inquired about what these post-human life forms would be like and if they could sustain historically. My response was that these post-human life forms would take different versions of what I called post-democracy and post-capitalism, after the demise of capitalism and democracy (both before and after the emergence of post-humans), and that many of them too would disappear in different stages, to be dominated eventually by what I referred to as 'floating consciousness' in the distant future.

"In my 2004 book, The Future of Post-Human Consciousness, I explore the future of floating consciousness itself. My conclusion is that the evolution will likely not stop there, based on the emergence of other consciousnesses (what I originally called 'hyper-spatial consciousness') beyond our current technological and cultural limits to appreciate them and, moreover, that the debate between epistemic 'reductionism' and 'emergencism' needs to be transcended, with important implications for understanding the profound questions concerning Being and Becoming.

"In my other 2004 book, Beyond Democracy to Post-Democracy: Conceiving a Better Model of Governance to Supersede Democracy, I further elaborated (contrary to the conventional belief of many contemporaries) on how and why democracy is as evil and good as non-democracy, to be superseded by 'post-democracy.'

"In addition, in the related Beyond Capitalism to Post-Capitalism: Conceiving a Better Model of Governance to Supercede Capitalism, I discuss why and how the very idea of wealth since modern times is essentially impoverished, in the context of 'post-capitalism' and 'post-democracy.' I propose a holistic approach to provide a comprehensive account of wealth from the perspectives of culture, society, nature, and the mind, in their totality.

"Unlike some other authors, there are few thinkers who have had a dominant influence on my intellectual odyssey over the decades. I regard it as undesirable in the process of coming up with something truly original (although beneficial too). Instead, I have made use of myriad ideas from all the domains of the social sciences, the humanities, and the natural sciences. This holistic approach in its broadest reach reflects three features of myself as a thinker. First, it reflects my massive education in multiple fields. Second, it reveals my amazing life experience in multiple civilizations (Asian, European, Middle Eastern, and North American). Finally, it is congenial to my intellectual ability to both analyze and synthesize myriad concepts, theories, methodologies, ontologies, and practices, often beyond the reach of conventional and narrow specialties.

"It is my calling to gaze at verity, even if its predisposition to challenge extant political correctness (understood here in its broadest sense) only earns few friends and makes many enemies. There is a heavy price to suffer oneself to think deeply in challenging the power that be, since one is likely to be sidelined to the margins of culture and society, with negative consequences to one's career development. But such a price, high as it is, is worth paying."