The climate crisis, authoritarian rulers, inequality, wars and the unchecked power of Big Tech and AI: the multiple crises of our time leave us feeling pessimistic and hopeless. Predictions of an impending apocalypse are growing ever louder. Who still dares to dream of a better future? 

​Yet all great achievements once began as utopian ideas — from democracy and human rights to the fight against disease. “What we cannot imagine cannot come into being,” said the American writer, thinker and feminist bell hooks. Isn’t it precisely now that we need utopias again? Where can we find inspiration in historical utopian experiments and today’s real utopias? How can we train our “muscle of imagination”? And how can we ensure that visions of the future are not left to a privileged few, but that we can shape the future together? 

​We will explore these questions with the renowned German author and thinker Kübra Gümüşay. For her forthcoming book Zukünfte (“Futures”), she is exploring just futures, real utopias and the politics of imagination in depth. The conversation will be moderated by journalist, author and podcaster Lara Billie Rense.