The Chinese New Leviathan: Cultural Subjectivity and Statecraft Today

The Telos-Paul Piccone Institute Annual Conference
March 20–21, 2026
The John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Queens College/CUNY
25 West 43rd Street, 17th Floor
New York, NY 10036

Co-sponsored by the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Queens College/CUNY

The Chinese New Leviathan: Cultural Subjectivity and Statecraft Today 

Conference Description

Following the fruitful discussion that took place during our China Keywords conference in March 2025, the Telos-Paul Piccone Institute (TPPI) invites paper proposals for our 2026 annual conference on “The Chinese New Leviathan? Cultural Subjectivity and Statecraft Today.” The conference is part of TPPI’s five-year China Initiative, which aims to foster a critical and mutually regarding discussion of social and political theory between China and the West, well beyond the circles of China specialists. This outreach effort across political boundaries continues a tradition established by the journal Telos, which played a pivotal role in fostering dialogue between intellectuals in the Anglosphere and Eastern Europe during the Cold War.

As one of the most potent and complex keywords in modern China, nationalism demands our rigorous theoretical engagement. It functions as a source of state legitimacy, a tool of social mobilization, and a site of intense public debate. From official state proclamations of rejuvenation to the pulse of online crowds, nationalism flows through China’s internal politics and its global stance. Its conceptualization has provided the intellectual context for the development of modern Chinese power, and it therefore needs to be understood both on endogenous terms and from a global philosophical perspective.

Under General Secretary Xi Jinping, Chinese civilizationalist discourse has surged. This discourse blends traditional Chinese thought with party ideology, positioning the PRC as a civilizational state and depicting international politics as an interplay of civilizations. While some critics warn that civilizationalist discourse establishes an imperialist form of nationalism, essentializes “Chinese characteristics” (the official phrase: “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics”), and entrenches a rigid, even antagonistic, East-West divide, others take a more optimistic view. As Jin Huimin of Sichuan University observed in his keynote at our 2025 China conference, an unreflective call for cultural self-confidence can indeed devolve into a closed-door cultural nationalism that polemicizes against Western cultures. Yet if we recognize that cultural subjectivity can encompass “learning from and absorbing all the outstanding achievements of human civilizations, then it in turn can enrich an open-minded cultural self.”

Prof. Jin’s proposal echoes R. G. Collingwood’s The New Leviathan (1942) in advancing a more open-ended conception of a civilizational state. It is partly with Collingwood’s ideas in mind that TPPI issues this call for papers. Are we witnessing in China the emergence of a full-fledged alternative nationalist political modernity? Is the world indeed entering the mysterious New Era prophesied by some Chinese political thinkers? Or will the consequences of the CPC’s effort to refigure the meaning of nationhood, as one critique would have it, be authoritarian repression buttressed with new conceptual tools—and in the West as much as in China? If the latter, then in light of Collingwood’s and related philosophical perspectives, what might be a promising path forward? 

We invite papers that move beyond descriptive accounts to theorize the multifaceted nature of Chinese nationalism. We are particularly interested in papers that place Chinese political thought in dialogue with Western critical theory, exploring points of convergence, divergence, and mutual illumination. While some speakers and participants in this conference will be China specialists, we warmly encourage non-specialists to become part of our conversation. We also welcome papers from every political and ideological perspective. Indeed, the clash of radically divergent, often unconventional ideas is one of the hallmarks of our conferences.

Topics and guiding questions include, but are not limited to: how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cultivates, manages, and deploys nationalist sentiment; the relationship between party ideology and popular nationalism; the defining features of nationalism as expressed on Chinese social media and in popular culture; Chinese nationalism and global order; the interaction between Han nationalism and the identities of ethnic minorities; and the contours of nationalist sentiment in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the broader Chinese diaspora.

We are particularly interested in critical deconstructions, analyses, and applications of key concepts in contemporary Chinese political thought. Contributors are encouraged to engage these concepts explicitly in their theoretical reflections—not only as entry points into Chinese political thinking, but also as tools for critically examining sociopolitical idealisms, institutions, and power structures in both China and the West. In the context of Chinese nationalism, the following key concepts are of central importance:

• Civilizational State (文明国家)
• National Rejuvenation (民族复兴)
• Patriotic Education Campaign (爱国教育)
• Online Public Opinion Guidance (舆论引导)
• National Unity (民族团结)
• Historical Revisionism (历史修正主义)
• National Pride (民族自信)
• Sovereign Integrity (主权完整)
• Self-Reliance (自力更生)
• Cultural Confidence (文化自信)
• Patriotism (爱国心)
• Theory Confidence (理论自信)
• System Confidence (制度自信)
• Century of Humiliation (百年国耻)
• Chinese Dream (中国梦)
• Chinese-style Modernization (中国式现代化)

Our 2026 conference will be organized by Prof. Chia-Hao Hsu of Si-Wan College, National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan. 

Submissions Guidelines

Presentations at the conference should be no more than 15 minutes long and between 1,500 and 2,000 words. Our conference has a two-stage process for acceptance: first, submission of a presentation proposal and, second, submission of a presentation draft. Both stages must be completed for final acceptance to the conference.

Presentation proposals should describe the topic of a talk or of a full panel in 100 to 250 words. Proposals for full panels, which can include up to four presenters, should include proposals for all presentations as well as for the panel as a whole. The deadline for proposals is September 15, 2025. 

With each proposal, please include the name and institutional affiliation of each presenter, along with a curriculum vitae or résumé. In addition to established university faculty, independent scholars, students, and individuals working fully outside university circles are warmly invited to submit proposals.

Review of proposals will be conducted on a rolling basis until the September 15 deadline, with final notification by September 22. Successful proposals will be invited to submit a presentation draft.

Presentation drafts are due by December 1, 2025. A presentation draft need be only 1,000 words long and need not be polished, though submission of full presentations is strongly encouraged. Final notification of acceptance will take place by December 15. The organizers will provide feedback on drafts to ensure a substantive and intellectually rich conference marked by a fruitful exchange of competing and complementary ideas.

Please note that TPPI is unable to provide travel or accommodation funds, that there will be no option to present via Zoom, and that there will be a conference registration fee. Past registration fees for non-student members of TPPI have been about $300. These fees provide not only for conference attendance but also for a celebratory conference dinner, lunches, and refreshments.

Submit proposals or inquiries to  [email protected].