Many of our faculty participated in the American Academy of Religion’s Annual Meeting in Boston in late November. A couple highlights here:
Aaron Stalnaker participated in a panel on the current state and future prospects of comparative religious ethics. IU doctoral graduate Bharat Ranganthan also participated. The presentations were pointed and the discussion was lively.
Michael Ing presented a paper titled “On and on the Times Move”: Tao Yuanming (c. 365 - 427) on the (Im)possibilities of Utopia. Focusing on Tao’s famous “Peach Blossom Spring” and related poems, the talk examined how Tao’s imagined communities function less as blueprints for societal reform and more as sanctuaries from the turbulence of political life. Ing argued that Tao’s utopias, while seemingly attainable, hinge on serendipity and temporal circumstance, revealing both the allure and the limitations of utopian thinking in early Chinese thought.
American Academy of Religion in Boston
Saturday, November 22, 2025
The College of Arts