Laurie Taylor talks to Professor Russell Jacoby, Professor Ash Amin, Professor Barbara Graziosi and The Bishop of Whitby, Martin Warner, about whether we can imagine 'utopia' in the 21st century. In an age that some describe as filled with anxiety and uncertainty, are we breeding a kind of fatalism towards the future that excludes any notion of utopia? How indeed might we define and describe utopia? Can utopian ideas be not only practical and pragmatic but also democratic? When considering utopia where does religious faith and thinking intertwine with the secular world? Can we even talk about commonly held utopian ideals or are we condemned to imagine utopia only as fantasy, as an intellectual or artistic excerise that is, ultimately, futile.
producer. Chris Wilson.