Everything for Everyone

Intentional Communities and the Utopian Impulse

From the Diggers to the Hippies via the Chartists, Owenites and Tolstoyan Anarchists the utopian impulse has resulted in literally hundreds of new communities across the UK. Drawing on 30 years of researching and living communally the talk will explore the past, present and future of intentional community in Britain.  

Imagining Otherwise: Utopia and the Work of Hope

How can imagined worlds offer hope and drive change? Utopian thinking has been described as “social dreaming,” but it is social dreaming that is put to work. Across literature, film, music, and art, creators have been energised by utopia’s capacity to interrogate the present and envision other possibilities. This talk explores how utopia functions as a form of creative collective imagination that shapes the possibilities of shared futures, drawing on examples from the late nineteenth and early […]