Thomas More's Utopia
Sunday 23 October, 10.00 - 11.30 , Conservatory Academy in One DayMore’s Utopia, published 500 years ago this year, is a book that has beguiled historians and political theorists over several centuries. Confronting a portrait of an idyllic community that seems to combine republican virtues with totalitarianism, readers have found it difficult, if impossible, to untangle the serious from the satirical. But it is this very complexity, alongside a deep engagement with classical Greek and Roman authors, that makes More’s Utopia such a compelling text. Taken along with the arguably contradictory features of More’s personal life - from his humanist ideals and deep friendship with Erasmus to his involvement in heretic hunting as Lord Chancellor - More’s Utopia is an endlessly intriguing work of political, social and philosophical imagination.
consultant, SHM Productions
Utopias, past and present: why Thomas More remains astonishingly radical, Terry Eagelton, The Guardian, October 2015
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