Inventing Paradise:
Utopian Visions from Antiquity to AI
The Life Institute | Fall 2026
Fridays, 10 am – 12 pm
This course explores how thinkers, writers, artists, and planners across history have imagined ideal societies and used those visions to critique the worlds they inhabited. Moving chronologically and thematically over eight weeks, the course examines classical foundations such as Plato’s Republic, early modern literary utopias like Thomas More’s Utopia and the Land of Cockaigne, and religious and communal experiments including the Shakers and other intentional communities.
We then turn to artistic, feminist, racial, architectural, environmental, and technological utopias. From William Morris and Charlotte Perkins Gilman to Wakanda, Ecotopia, and contemporary debates about AI futures, participants will consider both the promises and the limitations of utopian thinking.
Week 1: An Introduction to Utopias
We begin our series exploring the concept and history of utopia by tracing some of its foundational texts, such as Plato’s The Republic and Thomas More’s Utopia, and how these have produced our understanding of utopias today. We’ll discuss how utopian writers, past and present, have framed their idealistic visions using literary genres such as travel, science fiction, and fantasy. But we will also explore how utopian idealism isn’t just found on the page; we’ll also set the stage for later weeks by exploring the ways in which utopian communities have bubbled up across the world for centuries.
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