ABSTRACT
The concept of “utopia,” which dates from antiquity, is developed in modes as disparate as fiction, philosophy, theology, epistemology, praxis (as living experiments), political philosophy, and critical theory. Working from the perspective of utopian studies, this introductory overview is almost exclusively limited to consideration of utopian literatures in English. It privileges the concept of “utopia” as expressed through fiction, as well as utopian theory by scholars whose fields of inquiry include both sf and utopia. Following a short discussion of the emergence of utopian studies as a contemporary academic discipline, I will offer a sampling of major literary utopias since the 1500s, concentrating on their historically situated themes, before discussing some major political and philosophical utopian concepts. I will consider several major works of recent utopian critical and literary theory, and close with a few thoughts on the problem of the distinction between utopian thought and praxis, and, by extension, the problem of definition vis-à-vis utopia.
