An exhibition, "Imaginary Cities," is on display from July 1 through Aug. 31, in the Special Collections Library Exhibition Hall, 104 Paterno Library, University Park.
The publication in 1516 of Thomas More's "Utopia" brought a new literary genre into existence, and by 1611 the word "utopia" made it into an English dictionary. After More's "Utopia," writers throughout Europe wrote similar novels about idealized communities that were nestled in the distant reaches beyond the known world.
Implicit within all utopian novels is a critique of the political and moral organization of cities. As many scholars have noted, a utopia presents an idealized community that is supposed to stand in sharp contrast to the reader's experience of city life and represent a possible alternative world. The fictional claim of most utopian novels is that the city depicted in the story actually does exist ââ¬"- for example, on a distant island.
Utopian literature also is allied with discourse on city planning. As writers described the internal structure and operation of their ideal cities, they relied on treatises on architecture and city planning, such as the one surviving Roman treatise written by Vitruvius. Architects, like novelists, composed imaginary cities that never left the paper on which they are drawn.
The materials on display include a selection of the holdings of the Arthur O. Lewis Utopia Collection in the Special Collections Library.