From Nowhere: Utopian and Dystopian Visions of Our Past, Present, and Future

Abstract

Since the earliest known works of literature three-thousand years ago, the vision for a better society, an ideal society, has driven and inspired cultures to improve their social conditions. These visions were written around themes of voyage and discovery, the classical age, and medieval Christianity, that culminated in Thomas More’s Utopia in 1516. Since More’s vision of the imaginary society on the island of Utopia, writers have envisioned practical societies that transform our economic, political, technological, and cultural infrastructures taking us to uncharted lands, distant planets, and unimaginable futures that challenge and alter our society’s foundations. These utopian, and sometimes dystopian, visions show us what our society could be like and how we could achieve it, for better or for worse. This exhibition will showcase a selection of these utopian and dystopian visions ranging from Plato’s Republic and Augustine’s City of God to Francis Bacon’sNew Atlantis and Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe to H. G. Wells's War of the Worlds and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.