John Locke is a doctoral candidate in the Humanities and Culture program at Union Institute and University in Cincinnati, Ohio. For his dissertation, Locke has embarked on an ambitious project to write and illustrate a sequel to Utopia, Thomas More’s influential 16th century literary work that professes to describe, “the Best State of a Commonwealth and the New Island of Utopia.” Locke explains, “After my initial reading of More’s Utopia, the writer in me felt compelled to build on it— to pick up where More left off. The story resumes 20 years after the conclusion of More’s work, and quickly moves from the Tower of London to the jungles of the New World during the Spanish Conquest. It follows both fictional characters and and fictionalized historical figures as they embark on a journey to find Utopia— both the geographical location and the state of being.
