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Past Perfect: Utopian Visions In Historical Perspective, Seton Hall University, Department Of History

Symposium in Comparative History

This symposium seeks to explore the phenomenon of utopias in all their incarnations—real and imagined; micro and macro; past, present and future. We seek to situate utopian thinking historically and culturally. Are these visions of a perfect world a distinctive feature of Western modernity or do they tap into a more universal impulse? What can utopias tell us about the societies and eras that produced them? What is the view of human nature underlying utopian ideals? We look to explore the processes by which utopian ideals are developed and disseminated. What sort of people build utopias? What makes some utopian …