Utopias and Dystopias?

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The term Utopia comes from the so-titled 1516 book Utopia by Sir Thomas Moore, describing a fictional island. Utopia literally means “nowhere.” The term has come to refer to imaginaries of a societal ideal, as conjured up through visual arts, in literature, tv or film, or as established, albeit temporarily, in a place or community. A Dystopia is the imaginary of a societal fear or concern.

Utopian and Dystopian imaginaries tend to be a call to action by showing what could be or what might happen when things are taken to an extreme — or by inaction alone. Utopias and Dystopias often constitute a counter point or alternative to the current state of being of a social group, society, or the world at large. Utopias may exist temporarily in the real world, although their scale and stability often falls short of the ideal.

What is Utopia Observatory?

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The Utopia Observatory is a research group dedicated to bringing together and assess all Utopias and Dystopias as imagined in literature, film, television, music or realized historically. Our goal is to catalogue such imaginaries and to understand what makes them so powerful.

Our team continuously searches for Utopias and Dystopias to update our catalogue. For each entry, we craft a synthesis that captures its key characteristics. This information is made available through our catalogue.

Behind the scenes, our team dedicates its efforts to analyze each entry, mapping their subject, reference points, and key features of the event or world as depicted.

The Story

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This project is the brain child of Jonathan Mijs, sociology professor at Boston University. It came to fruition through the efforts of Jace Rios Rivera, who served as the project lead and dubbed it Utopia Observatory.

Together, they began the process of cataloguing Utopias and Dystopias in May 2025. Since then, the team has expanded to include a variety of people and perspectives.

The Observatory welcomes new members. Please contact us if you’d like to learn more or are interested in joining the team.