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NOTE: This session is hybrid. It will be seated and accessible on Zoom. Please indicate which you prefer when you submit your proposals. Thank you.

Annual Northeast Modern Language Association

57th  Annual Convention

March 5-8, 2026  in Pittsburgh, PA

at Wyndham Grand Pittsburgh Downtown.

            Aldous Huxley, who wrote in the 1930s, is famously remembered for his novels Brave New World and Island as well as for the essays he wrote for William Randolph Hearst. Jerome Meckler’s “Aldous Huxley: Dystopian Essayist of the 1930s.” reviews some of Huxley’s writing.

The focus of this panel is to assess Huxley’s writings in relationship to present day issues of culture and diversity. For example, he wrote about immigration policies that should discriminate against stupidity instead of race (“Racial History,” Heart Essays 346).  He also wrote about drug issues and predicted the failure of all wars of drugs (“Poppy Juice,” Heart Essays 7 January 1932). At the time, there were vain attempts by the League of Nations to control trafficking in illegal substances such as morphia and cocaine. He also wrote that humans continually “invent new moral problems to take the place of those mechanically eliminated by the improved techniques of living” (500 Prophets,” Heart Essays 296). How does this project possible templates for evolving culture?

What present day issues do you see reflected in Huxley’s  Brave New World , Island or his other writings? How does Huxley tentatively resolve some of the same issues we face in our present society? Are there any redeeming considerations in his dystopian treatises?  Are Huxley’s views on disarmament, decentralization, as well as educational and Ideological reforms feasible?