Key Speakers

Dr. Prof. Tongdong Bai is the Dongfang Chair Professor of Philosophy at Fudan University, Global Professor of Law at NYU’s Law School, adjunct professor at NYU-Shanghai and member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. He held a bachelor degree in nuclear physics and a master degree in the philosophy of science from Peking University, and a doctoral degree in philosophy from Boston University. He was a tenured associate professor at Xavier University in Cincinnati before he moved to Fudan in 2010. 

His research interests include political philosophy and Chinese philosophy. He has two books published in English: China: The Political Philosophy of the Middle Kingdom (Zed Books, 2012), and Against Political Equality: The Confucian Case (Princeton University Press, 2019); he also has three books published in Chinese, A New Mission of an Old State: The Comparative and Contemporary Relevance of Classical Confucian Political Philosophy (Peking University Press, 2009), Tension of Reality: Einstein, Bohr and Pauli in the EPR Debates (Peking University Press, 2009), and Tian Xia: Five Lectures on the Mencius (Guangxi Shifan University Press, 2021).

He is now working on the philosophy of Han Fei Zi (circa 250 BCE), a “Legalist” and a harsh critic of Confucians, as well as a real-life princeling who is often compared with Machiavelli and Hobbes. He is also the director of an English-based MA and visiting program in Chinese philosophy at Fudan University that is intended to promote the studies of Chinese philosophy in the world. These and other academic and social activities in which he is involved are all aimed to introduce new political norms that draw their inspirations from traditional Chinese philosophy and are informed by comparative philosophy and political theories.

白彤东

Tongdong Bai

Sandro Chignola is full professor of political philosophy, member of the governing council of the doctoral programme in philosophy at Padua University and of the comité de pilotage of the international doctorate school «Europhilosophie» (http://www.europhilosophie.eu/doctorat/). He is also member of the editorial board of some academic journals: «Filosofia politica», «Cahiers du GRM»; «Res Publica. Revista de filosofia política»; «Politica e società»; «Materiali foucaultiani»; «Conceptos Históricos». His research interests and specialization include: the history of political concepts; french contemporary philosophy; critical theory; german and french political theory at the XIXth and XXth century; conceptual history, Reinhart Koselleck, and Otto Brunner. 

Books (selected):  Foucault oltre Foucault. Una politica della filosofia. Seminari. Seconda edizione ampliata, Roma, DeriveApprodi, 2022; Diritto vivente. Ravaisson, Tarde, Hauriou, Macerata, Quodlibet, 2020; Foucault’s Politics of Philosophy. Power, Law and Subjectivity, Abingdon – New York, Routledge, 2018; Il tempo rovesciato. La Restaurazione e il governo della democrazia, Bologna, il Mulino, 2011; Storia dei concetti e filosofia politica (with Giuseppe Duso), Milano, Angeli, 2010; Historia de los conceptos y filosofía política (with Giuseppe Duso), Madrid, Biblioteca Nueva, 2009.

Personale docente | Dipartimento di Filosofia, sociologia, pedagogia e psicologia applicata (FISPPA)h1.desc-dip-logo{display:none;} | Università di Padova

Claudia Mattos Avolese is Professor at Tufts University, Boston, and the University of Campinas, Brazil.

Claudia Mattos Avolese received a PhD in Art History from the Freie Universität Berlin, in 1992. She was a post-doctorate fellow at the University of Campinas from 1994 to 1999 and a fellow at the Courtauld Institute in 2001. In 2003 she was hired as professor for the History of Art at the University of Campinas in Brazil, where she taught until 2021 and where she still collaborates and advises students in the Art History Graduate Program. In 2023 Prof. Mattos Avolese accepted a position at Tufts University in the United States, where she is now based.

Prof. Mattos Avolese is the author of several books, and articles on Brazilian art from the nineteenth century to the contemporary, as well as on the history of art history, including Motion: Migrations. 35th World Congress CIHA (ed., 2024); Arte não-Europeia: conexões historiográficas a partir do Brasil (2020, co-edited with Patrícia Meneses); New Worlds: Frontiers, Inclusion, Utopias (2017, co-edited with Roberto Conduru) and Expressionismo e Judaísmo. O Período Alemão de Lasar Segall (1906-1923) (2000). In her most recent research, she is looking at indigenous art in Brazil and its relationship to the development of a new critical approach to art history.

Claudia Mattos Avolese | School of the Museum of Fine Arts | Tufts University