Utopia: Whither the Future?

“The Abolition of Private Property as Utopian Demand”
Keynote lecture by Michael Hardt, Duke University Professor and Director of the Marxism & Society Certificate Program and Bass Fellow

What are the stakes of utopia today? How can we understand utopia in history, whether in theory or practice? Are utopias possible, or even desirable? This year’s Columbia ICLS Graduate Conference will confront some of the challenges posed by various utopian visions and projects: we want to emphasize the value of comparative perspectives in thinking about utopias, whether across historical periods, societies and imaginaries, or from different academic angles.

The lecture is part of an interdisciplinary graduate student conference hosted by The Institute for Comparative Literature that takes place on Friday, September 23, 9am - 6pm at Deutsches Haus, 420 West 116th Street.