Europe’s Dystopian Futures: Perspectives on Emerging European Dystopian Visions and Their Implications

The essay briefly charts how Europe first emerged as a concept, leading gradually to visions about its future, increasingly informed by practical federal and confederal models elsewhere. In literary terms, Europe’s emerging dystopians rarely placed their visions in projected European futures, whether political or geographical. However, as post-war Europe has become increasingly integrated and as European organisations – particularly the European Union (EU) – have become increasingly well-established, so literary dystopian depictions of ‘Europe’ and ‘Brussels’ have duly started to emerge. Brief consideration of three case studies reveals recurring themes that suggest Europeans’ worst fears about their futures are the returns, in some form, of their pasts.