William Morris and the Future of Work

In addition to the desire to produce ‘beautiful things’, the central passion in Morris’ life and work was the hatred of industrial capitalism. Through a détour across the relationship between critical Marxism and concrete utopia—in the works of Morris and Bloch—we seek to account for the unique and diverse nexus between the socialist conception of the world, the romantic-revolutionary current and what classical Marxism used to call the questions of everyday life. Based on studies of culture, literary essays and critical theory, we intend to present William Morris from the quintessential canon of ‘Craft/man/ship’, i.e. the centrality of work, in general, and, in particular, of live labour.