Over the last decade the American imagination has taken a dystopian turn. The next generation fears ecological death and the end of the anthropocene, the demise of liberalism and the rise of authoritarian nationalisms. The internet that once inspired technological optimism now inspires pessimism about cultural and political decline. Some respond by projecting a nostalgic past; others escape to a fantastic alternative present. Political leaders disagree over how much change we should imagine.
These are all real fears. But in Catholic imagination the future is not dystopian. Understandings of salvation differ, but all are overwhelmed with hope. Our bodies will be resurrected to live with God forever, and every tear will be wiped away. Dante’s poetic journey through hell and purgatory ends in paradise. It was the Catholic martyr St. Thomas More who invented the genre of literary Utopias, the progenitor of modern science fictions. Yet Dante and More also intended their imaginative works as social critiques.
How does St. Thomas More’s “Utopia” build on precedents in Plato, Cicero, and Dante? How does his model differ from Francis Bacon, Daniel Defoe, William Morris, and Aldous Huxley? How does the Catholic utopian aesthetic overlap with other contemporary literary genres like poetry or science fiction?
How have Catholic artists and theologians imagined “heaven” or full communion with God? Is it an alternative world (hetero-topia), or does God’s kingdom arrive on earth? Is the ultimate hope the divinization of humankind (theosis)? Will all be saved (apokatastasis)? What is a resurrected body?
What is a Catholic spirituality of hope? How does it promote what Pope Francis calls “integral ecology,” without illusion or despair? How does it interact with prophecy, nostalgia, or fantasy? How should Catholics imagine a future-oriented politics of the common good?
Fall 2021
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