Home and Homelessness: Speculations on the Language of Utopian Thought

keynote speaker II

Utopia means literally ‘no place’. Yet its homophone eutopia means ‘good place.’ This linguistic play cuts to the heart of the utopian paradox – a placeless zone of goodness. Nonetheless what if placelessness is less an obstacle to actualization than the very condition of its possibility? Touching on notions of home/beyond, inside/outside, public/private we will consider spatial rhetorics in poetry and art to ask whether alternate ways of using language might reveal new possibilities for action within that world.