New Books in Critical Theory Matthew Benjamin Cole, "Fear the Future: Dystopia and Political Imagination in the Twentieth Century" (U of Michigan Press, 2025)
Sep 13, 2025
Matthew Benjamin Cole, a political theorist and visiting assistant professor at Binghamton University, explores the interplay between dystopian narratives and political imagination. He discusses how modern political discourse reflects fears of authoritarianism and technocracy, drawing on insights from Orwell and Huxley. The conversation reveals the role of collective imagination in shaping societal realities and highlights the necessity of approaching future visions with both optimism and skepticism. Cole urges engagement with dystopian themes to inspire activism and resist political apathy.
01:48:38
Dystopia As Political Imaginary
- Dystopia functions as a political imaginary, not merely a fiction genre.
- It shapes how people imagine futures and mobilize politically through images.
From Dissertation To Book Cover
- Cole describes how the book grew from his dissertation and post-2016 political concerns.
- He also recounts collaborating with artist Cleon Peterson for the book cover.
Use Dystopia To Motivate Action
- Treat dystopian warnings as calls to avert futures, not as reasons to despair.
- Use realistic pessimism to focus political action where change remains possible.
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Intro
00:00 • 3min
Dystopian Narratives and Political Discourse
03:06 • 22min
Dystopian Futures and Political Imagination
25:34 • 9min
Imagining Futures: Utopia and Dystopia
34:31 • 24min
Reflections on Dystopia: Insights from Orwell and Huxley
58:24 • 4min
Dystopia, Technology, and Political Power
01:02:34 • 15min
Democracy in the Age of Technocracy
01:17:48 • 6min
Narratives of Control and Consent
01:24:10 • 18min
Exploring Dystopian Themes and Political Imagination
01:41:55 • 6min
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Dystopia and Political Imagination in the 20th Century
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Offering a novel reading of major themes and thinkers, Fear the Future explores visions of the future from literary figures such as Yevgeny Zamyatin, Aldous Huxley, and George Orwell; political theorists such as Max Weber, Hannah Arendt, Herbert Marcuse, Jürgen Habermas, and Michel Foucault; and mid-century social scientists such as Erich Fromm, Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, David Reisman, C. Wright Mills, and Jacques Ellul.
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With detailed case studies of key thinkers from the Enlightenment to the late twentieth century, the book synthesizes secondary literature and research from a range of disciplinary areas, including in political theory, intellectual history, literary studies, and utopian studies.
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Are we already living in some kind of fascist or technocratic dystopia? How do we avert the AI dystopia? These are the types of things that you'll see thrown about in op-eds and analysis pieces all over the net and the press. Dystopia is doing some kind of work in our political vocabulary that goes beyond a reference to those iconic dystopian novels or their sort of contemporary successors. … Sometimes politics seems to be so absorbed in the train of fantasy and the imaginary that it becomes worrying. But like it or not, or like specific expressions of the political imagination or not, the political arena is an arena of the imagination. Habermas once said that people don't fight for abstractions, but they do battle with images.
– Matthew Benjamin Cole, NBN interview 2025
After centuries of contemplating utopias, late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century writers began to warn of dystopian futures. Yet these fears extended beyond the canonical texts of dystopian fiction into post-war discourses on totalitarianism, mass society, and technology, as well as subsequent political theories of freedom and domination. Fear the Future: Dystopia and Political Imagination in the Twentieth Century (U of Michigan Press, 2025) demonstrates the centrality of dystopian thinking to twentieth century political thought, showing the pervasiveness of dystopian images, themes, and anxieties. Offering a novel reading of major themes and thinkers, Fear the Future explores visions of the future from literary figures such as Yevgeny Zamyatin, Aldous Huxley, and George Orwell; political theorists such as Max Weber, Hannah Arendt, Herbert Marcuse, Jürgen Habermas, and Michel Foucault; and mid-century social scientists such as Erich Fromm, Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, David Reisman, C. Wright Mills, and Jacques Ellul. It offers a comparative analysis of distinct intellectual and literary traditions, including modern utopianism and anti-utopianism, mid-century social science, Frankfurt School critical theory, and continental political philosophy. With detailed case studies of key thinkers from the Enlightenment to the late twentieth century, the book synthesizes secondary literature and research from a range of disciplinary areas, including in political theory, intellectual history, literary studies, and utopian studies. This wide-ranging reconstruction shows that while dystopian thinking has illustrated the dangers of domination and dehumanization, it has also illuminated new possibilities for freedom.
Professor Cole published his book with the University of Michigan Press as Open Access: find the detailed insights and arguments that Matthew discusses in our interview here as an online publication with downloadable options.
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