Early Utopian Visions

Critical Articles on Utopias | Websites on Utopias
Articles on Metropolis | Websites on Metropolis
Articles on Things to Come | Websites on Wells and Things to Come


  • Telotte, J. P. “ Just Imagine-ing the Metropolis of Modern America.” Science Fiction Studies 23:2 (69) (1996 July), 161-70.

  • Desser, David. “Race, Space and Class: The Politics of the SF Film from Metropolis to Blade Runner.” In Kerman, Retrofitting Blade Runner (1990). 110-123. (Metropolis, Just Imagine, Things to Come, The Time Machine, Fahrenheit 451, Soylent Green, THX1138, Escape from New York, and BR)

  • Strick, Philip. “The Metropolis Wars: The City as Character in Science Fiction Films.” In Omni’s Screen Flights/ Screen Fantasies: The Future According to Science Fiction Cinema, ed. Danny Peary. Garden City, NJ: Doubleday & Co., 1984. 43-49.

  • Pohl, Frederick. “The Demi-Docs: Just Imagine and The Shape of Things to Come.” In Omni’s Screen Flights/ Screen Fantasies: The Future According to Science Fiction Cinema, ed. Danny Peary. Garden City, NJ: Doubleday & Co., 1984. 90-96.

  • Franklin, H. Bruce. "Don't Look Where We're Going: Visions of the Future in Science Fiction." Science Fiction Studies 10 (1983): 70-80.

  • Wolfe, Gary K. “Icon of the City.” Chapter 4 of The Known and Unknown: The Iconography of Science Fiction. Kent State UP, 1976.


  • Websites on Utopias


    Articles on Metropolis

  • Telotte, J.P. “The Seductive Text of Metropolis.” Chapter 2 of Replications : A Robotic History of the Science Fiction Film. U of Illinois P, 1995: 54-71.

  • Wood, Andy. “More than Metaphor: Double Vision in Lang's Metropolis.Foundation: The-Review of Science Fiction. 1995 Summer, 64, 70-81. MLA: 95066588 .

  • Kaes, Anton. “Cinema and Modernity: On Fritz Lang's 'Metropolis’.” 19-35 IN Grimm, Reinhold (ed.); Hermand, Jost (ed.). High and Low Cultures: German Attempts at Mediation. Madison : U of Wisconsin P, 1994. MLA: 95035478 .

  • Neumann, Dietrich. “ The Urbanistic Vision in Fritz Lang's Metropolis.” 143-62 IN Kniesche, Thomas W. (ed.)Brockmann, Stephen (ed.). Dancing on the Volcano: Essays on the Culture of the Weimar Republic. Columbia, SC : Camden House, 1994. MLA: 94080050 .

  • Hales, Barbara. “ Fritz Lang's Metropolis and Reactionary Modernism.” New German Review, 1992, 8, 18-30 MLA: 93081714 .

  • Dadoun, Roger. “Metropolis: Mother-City -- “Mittler”--Hitler.” In Penley et al, Close Encounters. (1991)143-60.

  • Patalas, Enno. “Metropolis: Screen 103.” In Penley et al, Close Encounters. (1991) 161-70.

  • Werner, Gosta. “Fritz Lang and Goebbels: Myth and Facts.” Film Quarterly,. 1990 Spring, 43:3, 24-27

  • Bloch, Robert. “The Master and Metropolis.” In Omni’s Screen Flights/ Screen Fantasies: The Future According to Science Fiction Cinema, ed. Danny Peary. Garden City, NJ: Doubleday & Co., 1984. 85-90.

  • Huyssen, Andreas. "The Vamp and the Machine: Technology and Sexuality in Fritz Lang's Metropolis." New German Critique 24-5 (Fall-Winter 1981-2): 221-37.

  • Roth, Lane. “Metropolis: The Lights Fantastic: Semiotic Analysis of Lighting Codes in Relation to Chracter and Theme.” Literature/Film Quarterly 6.4 (Fall 1978): 343-6.

  • Kracauer, Siegfried. From Caligari to Hitler; a psychological history of the German film. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1947. (See index for pp. on Metropolis )

  • Websites on Metropolis


    Articles on Things to Come

  • Caldwell,-Larry-W. “Wells, Orwell, and Atwood: (EPI)Logic and Eu/Utopia.” Extrapolation 33:4 (1992 Winter), 333-45.

  • Parrinder,-Patrick “H. G. Wells and the Fiction of Catastrophe.” Renaissance and Modern Studies, 28 ( 1984), 40-58.

  • Pohl, Frederick. “The Demi-Docs: Just Imagine and The Shape of Things to Come.” In Omni’s Screeen Flights/ Screen Fantasies: The Fitire According to Science Fiction Cinema, ed. Danny Peary. Garden City, NJ: Doubleday & Co., 1984. 90-96.

  • Davis,-Ken. “The Shape of Things to Come: H. G. Wells and the Rhetoric of Proteus.” 110-124 IN Rabkin-Eric-S. (ed.); Greenberg-Martin-H. (ed.); Olander-Joseph-D. (ed.). No Place Else: Explorations in Utopian and Dystopian Fiction. Carbondale : Southern Illinois UP, 1983.

  • Bjornson,-Richard. “The Future History: The Rhetoric of Utopian Narrative in H.G. Wells' Things to Come.” 31-36 IN Walther-Maud. Purdue University Fifth Annual Conference on Film. Oct. 30-Nov. 1, 1980


    Websites on Wells and Things to Come