Dr. Liam Benison is a researcher in imagination literacy in the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon. His research investigates the role of the utopian imagination in inspiring sociopolitical change since the sixteenth century. His research interests encompass the history of knowledge, privacy studies, historical geography, public health, book history, and Indigenous–European knowledge exchange. He has been a long-term collaborator with the Centre for English Translation and Anglo-Portuguese Studies (CETAPS) at the University of Porto in the research area “Mapping Utopianisms”, and is an affiliated scholar of the Centre for Privacy Studies at the University of Copenhagen. His research on privacy in early modern utopianism was funded via the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Seal of Excellence scheme at the University of Verona, where he also taught library science in Italian. He is a committee member of the Utopian Studies Society / Europe.

Area of activity: ERA Chair on Imagination and Society

Keywords: Utopianism, imagination, socio-political change, history of knowledge, history of geography