Naomi Jacobs, Professor of English: "I see it everywhere. I see signs for Utopia spas, Utopia hair salons. I've seen a Utopia car mechanic, in fact, but  I also see it operating in much more serious ways, particularly in the political system, and I think that anyone who looked at this year's election saw two versions of common Utopian thinking. Conservatives very often draw on the power of visions of the lost Golden Age, a time in the past when things were better than they are now. So, when there are calls to small-town values, to rural values, that's creating or constructing that kind of life is the best possible life. And it's a very powerful motivator, especially if people remember that as a happy time from their childhood. Liberals much more often will project out into the future, a vision of something new and better. Even though many of the qualities that are valued are the same--community, justice, freedom--may all be brought forward in either of these versions.  But whether it's a paradise in the future or a lost golden age in the past are usually the two versions we see in any politics. I would say that Obama's emphasis on hope and the possibility of something better than what we know was the strongest Utopian expression in this election. It wasn't calling upon fear but more on possibility. And one of the great philosophers of Utopia, Ernst Bloch, calls the Utopian impulse the principle hope. So, it is that aspect of human nature or human behavior, if you will, that just won't stop thinking about tomorrow--to use another political slogan--and projecting out some better world than what we know and hoping for a transformation into that better world."