Dark Futures in Projection:
On the 60th Anniversary of the Publication of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451
14-15 November 2013
The University of Porto, Portugal

Ray Bradbury’s most celebrated dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451, published less than a decade after World War II, is usually seen as a protest against the transformations that were then taking place in the United States of America: on the one hand, against government censorship, forced conformism and the erosion of democratic ideas; on the other hand, against the way television and other media, as well as the advertisement industry, were crushing the human being’s individuality and creativity. Although the book had a good reception when it was published, its warning against government manipulation and the dangers of technology only became truly popular when the book was adapted to a film written and directed by François Truffaut in 1966.