Duration
07 Sep 2026 - 11 Sep 2026
This course explores the multiple dimensions of imagining futures in an era marked by uncertainty and accelerated change. The future is no longer a distant horizon but an active and contested one, shaped by narratives, infrastructures, and power relations in the present. Imaginaries of the future do not merely anticipate what is to come; they actively structure social expectations, guide policy decisions, and legitimize certain forms of innovation while marginalizing others.
The course analyzes how speculative visions—ranging from techno-optimistic utopias to climate dystopias—circulate across media, academic discourse, and public policy. These narratives mobilize resources, orient collective action, and define what is considered possible or inevitable. Particular attention is given to the role of digital technologies and environmental crises in reshaping temporal consciousness and producing new regimes of anticipation.
Imagining near futures has long been a central concern in political philosophy and in the history of political thought, especially insofar as it appeals to praxis. Social movements, political communities, and emancipatory projects have consistently proposed—and continue to propose—counterfactual alternatives to a threatening present. Utopia and dystopia intersect in these visions of the near future, revealing the normative tensions embedded in political imagination. The course also examines the role of imagination in opening up new political futures, while critically addressing the unequal distribution of the capacity to imagine and institutionalize them. Whose futures are being imagined, and who has the authority to define them?
