Founder’s College at York University in Toronto presents the Political Uses of Utopia Workshop, April 18-19, 2013.

The workshop features scholars representing different traditions and perspectives within political theory. The goal is to explore in a focused manner what the idea of utopia and different forms of utopianism can contribute to political thought across different traditions, including liberalism, radical democracy, anarchism, Marxism, Critical Theory, environmentalism, and feminism. Six leading international scholars have been invited, together with six emerging scholars, to lead a discussion with students and faculty from local universities as well as a more general public on the different possibilities for thinking utopia politically.

On each of the workshop’s two days, three sessions will be held during the day at Founder’s College at York University in Toronto. The first two will be introduced by papers by leading scholars in different subfields of political theory, to be followed by questions from the audience. The third, afternoon session will be launched by a panel in which the presenters will be joined by three emerging scholars; together, they will seek to engage the audience in a more general discussion of the themes that have arisen so far.

In order to facilitate involvement, texts will be circulated texts in advance—those the speakers will present and/or others chosen by them to serve as a basis for discussion—both by email among the participants and more broadly by means of a website constructed for this purpose. Each day will then culminate in a public lecture by a senior political theorist whose work on utopia has not yet attained the attention it deserves within English-language political theory.

For more information please email Nika Jabbarova (event coordinator) at

ni***@yo***.ca