In a world of economic instability, pandemic, social breakdown and climate crisis, dystopia has become the reigning form through which we imagine the future. In this day school, we will review four types of dystopia that have been influential over the last hundred years and consider how they reflect changes in Western society.
Techno-Utopia offers a positive vision of the future run by advanced technology. However, concealed under the surface lies sinister coercion and limitations on freedom. We will survey instances such as Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go.
Techno-Dystopia offers a more explicit form of totalitarianism through technology. Exemplified by the Ingsoc society of George Orwell’s 1984, we find contemporary iterations of it in the cyberpunk stories of Blade Runner, the magical dystopia of Harry Potter and the media dystopia of The Hunger Games.
The Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland eschews technology for complete social collapse and violent tribalism. Works such as Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, and Mad Max: Fury Road, testify to anxieties about resource scarcity, nuclear weapons, drought and famine.
Finally we will consider the possibility of escaping dystopia into Ecological Pastoralism. Exemplified by the writing of Ursula Le Guin, the films of Hayao Miyazaki and James Cameron’s Avatar movies suggest ways of living in harmony with nature in village communities. But are they viable visions of the future or just more dystopias in disguise?
Please note: this event will close to enrolments at 23:59 GMT on 8 April 2026.