‘Imagining Alternatives: Utopia in the World’

‘Imagining Alternatives: Utopia in the World’ asks how it might be possible to imagine better ways of living together even when so many of us feel a sense of hopelessness about the future. It proposes that policy makers diminish the communities they serve when they impose blueprints to manage access to limited resources. The project explores an alternative approach to problem-solving that harnesses the collective power of the human imagination. Thomas More’s Utopia (1516), first published in Latin and then translated into many European languages in the century after its publication, provides a model for this approach. The project places Utopia among other literary, philosophical, and sociopolitical exercises in alternative world-making. It explores the early modern culture of invention that produced lasting achievements, not least Utopia, which continues to be read across the world to this day. It investigates the early material history of Utopia and related texts from the period in their journey across borders of language, culture, race, gender, class, and sociopolitical allegiance.