Future Café
Based on 3CT’s successful Book Salon series and the global Death Café movement, the Future Café is a student-organized series that provides the opportunity and space for undergraduates to collectively imagine utopian possibilities and long-term futures. What sort of ideas appeal in the present moment? What projects are already underway? What is neo-futurism, or futurology? What is the role of imagination in shaping politics, the environment, and social life? How might radical futures be brought into being?
Each year, students meet to generate a list of topics for the year. Past topics have included the future of kinship, of divinity, of cities, and of intimacy. In spring 2020, Future Café presented the first issue of Post-X, a zine compilation of creative work and futurology by University of Chicago undergraduate students.
Future Café events are open to all undergraduate students at the University of Chicago, and no prior knowledge of the topic of discussion is required, nor is there “homework.”
![Flyer for The Future of Play, dark blue background with white, red, and yellow text](https://ccct.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Future-Cafe-Play-color-web.jpg)
![event poster with black text on orange background](https://ccct.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/2022-03-02-FC-Counterculture-Flyer-web.jpg)
![poster for the Future Cafe on Health blue](https://ccct.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/future-cafe-health-blue-scaled.jpg)
![poster for the Future Cafe on Consciousness with a graphic of a human head with a colorful sound or light wave running through it](https://ccct.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/2019-04-30-Future-Cafe-Consciousness.png)
![poster for May 2019 Future Cafe on Speculative Design, image of person walking with a wired contraption on their head](https://ccct.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/2019-05-30-Future-Cafe-Speculative-Design.jpg)
![poster for the future cafe on intimacy](https://ccct.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/2018-05-03-Future-Cafe-Intimacy-color-version.png)
![2018-19 Future Cafe overview poster of programs](https://ccct.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/2019-Future-Cafe-Poster.Program.png)