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Image derived from ‘Dancers in a drum circle at Occupy Wall Street’ (CC BY-NC 2.0) by Zoriah

Utopian Acts is a radical network investigating the relationship between utopia and activism across fields including academia, art, technology and science.

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Latest News
    • Our first conference report!Our first conference report!
      October 11, 2018We’d like to say a big thank you to Sasha Myerson for writing a generous and insightful report of Utopian Acts 2018. And thank you to all the people at Vector and the British Science Fiction Association for publishing the report.  Check it out! Conference Report: Utopian Acts 2018 Image Credit: Ayesha Tan Jones, Indigo Zoom: The Awakening (2018)...
    • Utopian Acts 2018 keynotesUtopian Acts 2018 keynotes
      October 8, 2018L: Professor Davina Cooper; R: Professor Lynne Segal The keynote speakers for Utopian Acts 2018 were Professor Davina Cooper and Professor Lynne Segal, and we’re thrilled to make the audio recordings of their keynote presentations available here. Professor Davina Cooper Davina Cooper is an academic at King’s Law School, writing on radical government, social experiments and new conceptualising. Her last book was Everyday Utopias: The Conceptual Life of Promising Spaces. She has just finished a book on reimagining the state, and started a new ESRC project on the Future of Legal Gender. In the 1980s, she was a Haringey councillor. Why Conceptual Futures Matter (And how to take them up) This talk explores the political work that concepts can do. Focusing on the state and gender, as two quite different concepts, Professor Cooper explores radical fantasies of what they might come to mean, and the different ways these imagined futures can be played out in the present. A version of the recording with slides is also externally hosted here. Professor Lynne Segal Lynne Segal is Anniversary Professor of Psychology and Gender Studies in the Department of Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck College. Her books include Is the Future Female? Troubled Thoughts on Contemporary Feminism; Slow Motion: Changing Masculinities, Changing Men; and Straight Sex: Rethinking the Politics of Pleasure. She co-wrote Beyond the Fragments: Feminism and the Making of Socialism with Sheila Rowbotham and Hilary Wainwright. Her most recent book is Radical Happiness, which explores the radical potential of being together. Resources for Hope: Moments of Collective Joy In popular culture around the globe, dystopian visions have all but obliterated utopian hopes for more favourable futures. Yet, resistance to the disorders of the present can also be seen rising and falling as circumstance allow, sometimes enabling us to renew our attachments to life by embracing both its real sorrows as well as its possible joys, while telling us that some form of utopian spirit is now essential for us to envisage any tolerable future at all. A version of the recording with slides is also externally hosted here....
    • SAHJ special issue – Call for Papers!SAHJ special issue – Call for Papers!
      September 24, 2018We’re really thrilled to announce that we’ve joined forces with the Studies in Arts and Humanities Journal, an open access peer-reviewed international academic collaboration, to publish a special issue expanding upon the themes and directions of the Utopian Acts 2018 conference which we ran in September. The Call for Papers for the special issue is now live and is open to anyone, not just those who presented at Utopian Acts 2018. We’re looking for both academic papers and work which is irregular, unusual, brave, and multi-modal – surprise us! Most of all, we’re looking for work which isn’t obscured with complex academic jargon, but which is clear, accessible, and powerful, with the potential to create new bonds of solidarity between activism and scholarship. We are first asking for short abstracts, with a separate deadline for the complete work, so please get your abstracts in by the 26th October 2018. All the other information you will need is on the Call for Papers. We look forward to reading your words! Battle of Cable Street mural, Shadwell, London...
 

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Supported by the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities and Centre for Contemporary Literature

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