Is a perfect world possible?
What is the ideal society? What policies, practices, procedures, and structures are required to obtain that ideal? Might the pursuit of perfectionism become the enemy of the good? These questions were the focus of a conference that took place at Notre Dame Beijing on December 20, 2025. “Utopias and Their Pursuits” was organized by Kellogg Faculty Fellow Liang Cai, an Associated Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame with financial and program support from the Kellogg Institute, the Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion and the Franco Family Institute for Liberal Arts and the Public Good.
The conference brought Catholic, Islamic, Greco-Roman, and Chinese thought and historical experience into conversation with each other. Themes included philosophical and theological considerations and critiques of utopia; policies and events guided by utopian ideals; and the ways that utopian ideals inform current world discourse. Twenty scholars from seventeen different academic institutions participated over two days of presentations and discussion kicked off by two keynotes: the first from Yuri Pines, the Renmin University of China, and Michael W. Lipson Professor in Chinese Studies at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, titled “Between Utopianism and Realism: Early Chinese Political Thought” and the second from Keith Knapp, Professor of History at the The Citadel on “Confucian Utopian Egalitarianism: The Equalization of Fields System (Juntian zhi 均田制) and Its Ideological Origins.”
One of the organizers of the conference, Professor Alex Hsu, Assistant Teaching Professor at the Ansari Institute spoke about how the conference was imagined. “Liang and Mahan and I cooked up this idea to organize conferences to reconsider utopia. First, we wanted to acknowledge that utopias can have deep philosophical, civilizational, and religious roots: there is real wisdom about societal perfection in our core "axial age" texts that contemporary Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Confucians, etc. want to draw on in making the world a better (but maybe always imperfect?) place. Second, we wanted to create an opportunity for civilizational dialogue around religious visions of social engineering.”
Professor Liang Cai explained her interest in Utopian studies in an interview about utopianism and confusionism: “I'm interested in how philosophical thoughts of utopia play out in history. Confucianism is a utopia-oriented philosophy and religion, and Confucians strive for a perfect society. They want to create a world where people pursue virtue as their primary life goal. If everybody is virtuous, then, they believe, everything, including the universe, would be in harmony. Not only do Confucians elaborate on their utopian thoughts on paper, but once they entrenched their position in the political realm, they also integrated their doctrines into the imperial legal system and crafted their philosophy into imperial policies. My research examines how the real-world - society and individuals who are always imperfect - responded to or were shaped by those perfect visions of society.”
Alexander Beihammer of the University of Notre Dame commented that this was one of the best conferences he has attended and expressed his hope to work with Notre Dame Beijing in the future. Simon Wolfgang Fuchs of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem remarked, “The breadth of topics and speakers was wonderful and the conference organizers did an admirable job of hosting us so generously. Utopias and Their Pursuits raised many issues that will surely stay with me for the foreseeable future.” Professor Jinyu Liu of Emory University stated, “Thank you to everyone in Beijing and South Bend for making the conference a memorable, enjoyable, and productive event. Thank you as well to the sponsors for the marvelous hospitality and generosity.”
Participants also had the opportunity to visit the Great Wall on an outing organized by Notre Dame Beijing Executive Director, Jingyu Wang. According to Wang, it was fitting that the conference be held in Beijing. “For years,” Wang said, “Notre Dame Beijing has served as a vital hub in China for the University of Notre Dame, showcasing the groundbreaking academic achievements of ND faculty while uniting students, scholars, and educators from around the world. This dynamic global presence has been instrumental in sparking meaningful conversations, building cross-cultural connections, and promoting mutual understanding across borders. We were honored to host this three-day international conference featuring scholars and graduate students from Notre Dame, China, Europe, and peer institutions like the University of Pennsylvania and Fudan University – that sparked vital exchanges on a comparative history of the east and west."
Professor Cai expressed gratitude for the hospitality of Notre Dame Beijing. “Notre Dame Beijing provides a safe and supportive or a sanctuary space for the discussion of academic topics in China. Because of the independence that Notre Dame Beijing possesses, there is no need to seek administrative approval from any local institutions to hold academic conferences. This independence helps secure freedom of speech and freedom of thought.”
Professor Levi Checketts, a University of Notre Dame alum and now a professor at Hong Kong Baptist University also spoke about his institution’s co-sponsorship: “Hong Kong Baptist University is happy to have co-hosted this conference on utopianism with the University of Notre Dame in Beijing. As one of the few Christian universities in China, we were excited for this opportunity to work closely with such a well known Catholic university in the US. As global scholars gathered to discuss Eastern and Western visions of ideal societies, we hope that our own contributions brought both important insights and contributed to facilitating further conversations between Chinese and Western scholars.”
Professor Hsu affirmed the importance of hosting these conversations on utopian ideals, noting that the conference between Catholic, Cinfucian, and scholars of Chinese thought could just be the beginning of ongoing dialogue that compares utopian thought. “We are hoping that having scholars discuss and appraise different species of utopian ideas and their successes and failures, we can not only work around "civilizational clashes" that seem to define the multipolar world right now, we can eventually open the door for the global scholarly community to work together to help achieve what seems impossible.”
Participants in the conference are affiliated with institutions including the University of Notre Dame, the University of Crete, Emory University, NYU Shanghai, the University of California, Santa Barbara, Chongqing University, the University of Texas at Austin, Leiden University, the University of Naples “L’Orientale,” the Academy of Korean Studies, Hong Kong Baptist University, the University of Louisville, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the University of Pennsylvania. It was sponsored by the Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion, the Franco Family Institute for Liberal Arts and the Public Good, the Kellogg Institute, Notre Dame Global, the Medieval Institute, and the Center for Applied Ethics at Hong Kong Baptist University. The full schedule for Utopias and Their Pursuits can be viewed here.