1. Alexander Watson Ideas and Identities 12 February 2015
Dystopias

2. Introduction What is a ‘Dystopia’? The 20th Century:
an age of dystopia?
- The First World War
- Stalin’s Soviet Union
- Nazi Germany
Conclusion
NKVD security personnel execute prisoners in one of Stalin’s gulags. Sketch by Danzig Baldaev

3. Definition
dystopia [noun] – An imaginary place or condition in which everything is as bad as possible; opposite of utopia [noun] Oxford English Dictionary

4. Imagined Dystopias

5. German corpses after the Artois Offensive, September 1915
The First World War,
German corpses after the Artois Offensive, September 1915

6. Otto Dix, ‘Sturmtruppe geht unter Gas vor’ [‘Storm Troops advancing under Gas’] (1924)

7. Paul Nash, ‘We are Making a New World’ (1918)

8. Legacies of the First World War
Ideological radicalisation and polarisation
- Bolshevism
- Fascism
Brutalisation & Militarisation of Politics
Imperial techniques of population control brought to Europe
- Military atrocities
- Deportations & internment camps
- Forced labour

9. Radical Regimes Josef Stalin Soviet leader, 1928-53 Adolf Hitler
Nazi Germany’s Führer (leader),

10. Michel Foucault ( )
“The expiation that once rained down on the body must be replaced by a punishment that acts in depth on the heart, the thoughts, the will, the inclinations.” Discipline and Punish, p. 16.

11. The Soviet Gulags Watch tower built to oversee Soviet forced workers
Prisoners digging the White Sea Canal

12. Nazi Concentration Camps
The infamous entrance gate to Auschwitz camp, with the slogan ‘Work Makes Free’
The Corpses of Prisoners found at Buchenwald Camp, April 1945

13. North Korean Political Prisoner Camp (2012)
Conclusion
Dystopias today
- North Korea
Dystopia and Utopias are two sides of the same coin
The 20th Century as the age of dystopia, and the key role of the First World War
North Korean Political Prisoner Camp (2012)