1984 in 1984, Orwell as Prophecy: George Orwell and Modern Views of the Future, 3/31/1984: Symposium Papers

Throughout the month of March, 1984, the New Jersey State Museum commemorated George Orwell’s novel, “1984,” with a comprehensive series of programs titled “Future Visions of the Future in Literature and Film.” It included an exhibition about utopian and dystopian visions of the future, a Saturday film series on the same subject, and a symposium about Orwell and the intellectual and literary tradition of which he was a part. The exhibition, “From Utopia to The Changing View of the Future,” offered the public a broad view of the ways in which people have imagined the future in words and pictures. It dealt with such well-known planners of the future as Thomas More, Francis Bacon, James Harrington, F.M.C. Fourier, and Robert Owen. It concentrated on nineteenth-century New Jersey utopian communities, the North American Phalanx and the Raritan Bay Union. It also included stills from the four films which were shown in the series “Future Film as Prophecy.” The films were “Metropolis,” “Things to Come,” “Fahrenheit 451,” and “THX 1138.” As a group, they offered a grim view of the future from different times in the twentieth century. The Orwell commemoration ended on Saturday, March 31, with the symposium “George Orwell and Modern Views of the Future.” The papers presented at that program are published in this volume.