Contributor(s): Professor Craig Calhoun | The world is given its contours, reality and limits partly by how it is imagined. Creativity, unrealistically ‘utopian’ thought and even the celebration of illusory ‘golden ages’ perform important roles alongside critical analysis of material conditions and practical possibilities. Art, religion, and social movements each play a vital part, though the power of imagination – and failures of imagination - extends even more widely. This lecture is given ahead of this year's LSE Space for Thought Literary Festival, which will be taking place from Monday 22 - Saturday 27 February 2016 with the theme "Utopias". Craig Calhoun (@craigjcalhoun) is Director and President of LSE. He is a world-renowned social scientist whose work connects sociology to culture, communication, politics, philosophy and economics. He took up his post as LSE Director on 1 September 2012, having left the United States where he was University Professor at New York University and director of the Institute for Public Knowledge and President of the Social Science Research Council. Emran Mian (@emranmian) is the Director of the Social Market Foundation, and author of Send In The Idiots and The Banker’s Daughter.