Real Utopias Project

Rather than focusing on either grand, abstract visions of a new social order or piecemeal reforms, the basic organizing principle of the project is to combine serious normative discussions of the underlying principles of different emancipatory visions with a pragmatic analysis of the institutional designs required to make those visions a reality. Each conference in the series is organized around a provocative, innovative manuscript advancing a proposal for radical, yet realizable social change. A group of scholars from around the world is invited to write essays engaging the ideas of this manuscript. The essays, which have ranged from detailed critiques of the argument advanced in the original manuscript to additional proposals for refining or modifying institutional designs, are circulated among participants and discussed at the conference. After the conference, the papers are revised in light of these discussions and the author(s) of the original manuscript write a concluding essay. The collection of papers is then published in the Real Utopias Project Series by Verso publishers, London.