#  2026 Conference Schedule (Shanghai) 

 



    ![AGPT 2026 poster](/sites/g/files/omnuum1371/files/styles/hwp_1_1__960x960_scale/public/2026-06/be6901d269f1f09aa10f2ae145410c3f%20%281%29.JPG?itok=fRLzm5Zy) 

 



 

 AGPT 2026 to be held in Shanghai



   

 

 

**Global Political Thought Conference - Shanghai 2026**

Conference Programme

**Day 1: June 16th Tuesday 14:00-19:00**

**Check-in at Jiaoshi Zhijia, hotel affiliated with the East China Normal University**

**Address:** [**Hongmei South St. 5858, Minhang District, Shanghai, China 200241**](https://www.google.com/maps/place/East+China+Normal+University+Teacher+Home+Hotel/@31.0326946,121.4585984,20z/data=!4m18!1m8!3m7!1s0x35b287e859ab59b1:0xa819bed26acf62df!2s5858+Hong+Mei+Nan+Lu,+Min+Hang+Qu,+Shang+Hai+Shi,+Chine,+200241!3b1!8m2!3d31.03274!4d121.45899!16s%2Fg%2F11n8t6hrn6!3m8!1s0x35b287e8f7a35fb7:0xab48b5c0cc695845!5m2!4m1!1i2!8m2!3d31.032684!4d121.459057!16s%2Fg%2F11h18dh49?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDYwMy4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D)

17:30-19:30 Buffet dinner at the hotel

**Day 2: June 17th Wednesday**

**9:00 – 9:20 Opening Ceremony**

**Humanities Building 5303**

**Chair: Li, Hongtu (Executive Director of the Centre for Global Intellectual History, East China Normal University; Professor of History, Fudan University)**

Opening Remarks by **Qu, Jun (Professor & Director of the History Department at the East China Normal University)**

***Conference Photograph***

**9:20 – 10:40 Panel 1 “Comparative Thought and the Global Turn”**

**Humanities 5303**

***15 minutes each, followed by 20 minutes of discussion***

Chair: **Xiao, Qi (East China Normal University)**

**Sakurai**, **Takamichi** (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main & Keio University): “Comparative Political Thought and Linguistic Parochialism in Political Theory”

**Tang, Xiaobing (East China Normal University):** “Comparison and Uncritical Conceptual Appropriation (Bifu): Rethinking the Debate on Chinese and Western Cultures” (in Chinese, with on-screen translation)

**Yuan, Shang (Fudan University):** “Rethinking and Restructuring: Exploring Paths to Global Intellectual History”

**Ashby, Thomas (University of Tokyo):** “Bricolage, the History of Political Thought, and the Global Turn”

**10:40-10:50 Tea Break**

**10:50 – 12:10 Panel 2: “Spaces of Social Thought: Sea and Land”**

**Humanities 5303**

***15 minutes each, followed by 20 minutes of discussion***

Chair: **Chang, Yi Ning (Harvard University)**

**Ryu, Aerim (Kyushu University):** “Islands and Political Imagination in Meiji Japan: Between Gulliver’s Fictional Space and Crusoe’s Imperial Frontier”

**Zhu, Ming (East China Normal University):** “Travels, Encounters, and Fusions across Civilizations from an Indian-Ocean Perspective” （in Chinese, with on-screen translation）

**Ruß, Daniela (Universität Leipzig):** “Seeing like a Proletarian: Aleksandr Bogdanov’s Energetic World-Making”

**Simonyan, Artur (Leibniz-Institut für Ost- und Südosteuropaforschung):** “Post-Soviet Constitutionalism and Territorial Conflicts: A SWAIL Reassessment”

**12:15 – 14:00 Lunch**

**Humanities 5301**

**14:00 – 15:20 Panel 3: “Ideas across Cultures and Contexts”**

**Humanities 5301**

***15 minutes each, followed by 20 minutes of discussion***

**Chair: Baycroft, Timothy (East China Normal University)**

**Bandeira, Egas Bender de Moniz (Tohoku University):** “Leo Tolstoy as a Constitutional Theorist: Rereading his Letter to a Chinese Gentleman in a Global Context”

**Ma, Hualing (East China Normal University):** “The Debate between Isaiah Berlin and Leo Strauss in the Chinese Context” (in Chinese, with on-screen translation)

**Chen, Zhenxin (East China Normal University** & **Freie Universität Berlin):** “The Global Moments of New Liberalism: China’s ‘Third-Way’ in the Early 20th Century”

**Abbasi, Salar (Universidade Católica Portuguesa):** “Revisiting Hannah Arendt's Account of 'Banality of Evil' in the Case of the Islamic Republic of Iran”

**15:20-15:50 Tea Break**

**15:50 – 17:10 Panel 4 “Synergies: Skepticism, democracy, positivism, Marxism”**

**Humanities 5301**

***15 minutes each, followed by 20 minutes of discussion***

Chair: **Zhao, Kuangyu (Duke Kunshan University)**

**Rathnam, Lincoln (Duke Kunshan University):** “The Practice of Skepticism: Montaigne and Zhuangzi on Freedom, Coexistence, and the Limits of Government”

**Duan, Demin (Peking University):** “Tocqueville between West and East”

**Fang, Jie (Fudan University):** “The Divergence of Positivism: Disagreement on Human Nature in the Correspondence of Comte and Mill” (in Chinese, with on-screen translation)

**Zhong, Xueping (Tufts University):** “Beyond ‘National Allegory’: (Western) Marxism and Modern Chinese Literature”

**17:30 Dinner at Jiaoshi Zhiia**

**Day 3: June 18th Thursday**

**8:45-10:05 Panel 5 “Thought Experiments across Cultures and Conditions”**

**Humanities 5303**

***15 minutes each, followed by 20 minutes of discussion***

**Chair:** **Anna Irene Baka (Univerzita Karlova)**

**Rathnam, Lindsay (Duke Kunshan University):** “Herodotus as the First Comparative Theorist”

**Yin, Shoufu (University of British Columbia):** “Democraticization through Wang Zhiwang Moments”

**Matsudaira, Naruhito (Tokujin) (Kanagawa University):** “Asian Constitutionalisms in International Contexts: Hsü Dau-lin, Higuchi Yoichi, Shimazono Susumu, Asakawa Kan'ichi”

**Chang, Yi Ning (Harvard University):** “From Social Theory to Democratic Thought: Conflict and Consensus in Lee Kuan Yew's Early Political Thought, 1959-1963”

**10:05-10:20 Tea Break**

**10:20 – 11:20 Panel 6: “Speech and/as Act”**

**Humanities 5303**

***15 minutes each, followed by 20 minutes of discussion***

Chair: **Tian, Run (East China Normal University)**

**Holman, Christopher (Nanyang Technological University):** “Utopia between Politics and Ethics: Levinas, Liberalism, and the State”

**Baka, Anna Irene (Univerzita Karlova):** “Constitutional Authenticity as Temporal and Narrative Intersubjectivity”

**Jeong, Jihyun (Duke Kunshan University):** “What Does Provocative Resistance Communicate?”

**11:20 – 11:40 Closing Ceremony**

Chair: **Li, Hansong (American University; Harvard University; East China Normal University)**

Closing panel: **Tong, Shijun (New York University, Shanghai) & Gao, Quanxi (Shanghai Jiaotong University)**

12:00 – 14:00 Lunch

14:00 – 16:00 Optional Visit: East China Normal University Archive Centre (Special Collection in Socialist History)

For those interested in visiting the archive centre, please gather at the Humanities Building 5303 promptly at 14:00

**Day 4: June 19th Friday Departure**