Utopias/Dystopias: More to Orwell to Fukuyama

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

This panel traces the evolution of the concepts of utopia and dystopia from Thomas More to George Orwell to Francis Fukuyama, by way of the works of other literary-political figures in the modern era, including Bartolomé de las Casas, Jean-Baptiste Cousin de Grainville, Mary Shelley, Friedrich Nietzsche, Camille Flammarion, H.G. Wells, Vladimir Lenin, C.S. Lewis, Katharine Burdekin, Arthur Koestler, Mamaine Paget Koestler, Celia Paget Kirwan, Bertrand Russell, Patricia "Peter" Russell, Michael Foot, and J. G. Ballard. The chair for our panel is the Australian historian of international thought, politics and literature, and existentialism, Liane Hartnett (International Relations, Melbourne), and the discussant for our panel is the distinguished historian of utopias and dystopias in political thought, Krishan Kumar (Sociology, University of Virginia).

Sub Unit

• Division 1: Political Thought and Philosophy

Individual Presentations

• Utopian and Dystopian Political Thought in and after Thomas More’s "Utopia" - Chase B. Mendoza, University of Notre Dame

• Orwell, Russell, Koestler and the Failed Human Rights Manifesto of 1946 - Eileen M. Hunt, University of Notre Dame; Ben Francis; Clare Catherine Duffy, University of Notre Dame

• The Riddle of Cruelty and the Anti-Fascist Dystopia: Orwell, Burdekin, Ballard - Matthew Benjamin Cole, Binghamton University (SUNY)

• The Entropia at the End of History: Fukuyama and the Legacy of the Last Man - Michael Cameron

Chair

• Mauro J. Caraccioli Virginia Tech

Discussant

• David Armitage Harvard University