After the Last Utopians

This chapter explores contemporary everyday utopias that embrace the central values associated with Edward Bellamy, William Morris, Edward Carpenter, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman—institutions, sites, and practices that are committed to political, sexual, and spiritual egalitarianism; that promote simplicity and sustainability; and that explore new forms of family and community. Here the author describes his visits to the isle of Erraid in the Scottish Hebrides, Findhorn in northern Scotland, Twin Oaks in rural Virginia, and Occupy Wall Street. He also discusses the turn against utopia and the triumph of the literary dystopia in the twentieth century; how literature, social theory, and communities—the three distinct faces of utopianism—thrived from the late 1950s through the 1970s; utopian literature in the twenty-first century; Carpenter's influence on gay men's retreats and on the Radical Faeries; and the role of education in utopian vision.