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The Universities of Leuven and Louvain-la-Neuve are celebrating the 500th anniversary of More’s Utopia, which was first published in 1516 in Lovanio.As part of that celebration, we are organizing a two-day conference on Utopias in Ancient Thought: from Hesiod to late Antiquity, on March 10 &#38; 11, 2016.Plato and Aristotle immediately come to mind, but of course, the Utopian theme is already present in some form in Hesiod, and was discussed throughout Antiquity, by philosophers as well as historians and comedians. It is the conference’s aim to try and cover all possible aspects of this multi-layered history, and to offer some new perspectives on the various philosophical questions that the theme of utopia did, and still does, evoke. We are particularly interested in papers dealing with less known figures, or with unexpected themes that go along with utopianism.Just a few examples:- utopian motifs in writers such like Lucian, Xenophon, Cicero, Dio Chrysostom,...- ancient historiographers on utopian themes- orators on utopian themes - Latin poetry and the motif of the Golden Age- ...All papers will be in English. Confirmed speakers are Ryan Balot, Dimitri El Murr, Stephen Hodkinson, Christoph Horn, Suzanne Husson, Stephen Kidd, Sean McConnell, Kathryn Morgan, Glenn Most, Gretchen Reydams-Schils, Tim Whitmarsh, Susan Sauvé-Meyer, Alexandrine Schniewind and Giulia Sissa.Abstracts (between 250 and 500 words) can be sent to the organisers: Pierre Destrée (pierre.destree@uclouvain.be), Jan Opsomer (Jan.Opsomer@hiw.kuleuven.be) or Geert Roskam (Geert.Roskam@arts.kuleuven.be). Deadline for submitting abstracts: September 1st