A Monastery of Their Own: Imagining a Utopia from the Aëthnic Union to Urania

Urania was a radical 20th century queer journal that focused on dismantling the ideas of “sex” (gender in modern terms). They believed that there should be no such thing as a man or a woman, and that all should live freely and neutrally as they wished. The beginning of these ideals did not start with Urania, and was in fact preceded by a little-explored group called the Aëthnic Union. This project explores the importance of the Aëthnic Union to the early twentieth century scene of radical politics, and then goes on to explore the development of the ideal of a Uranian utopia throughout issues of Urania from 1919 to 1926. It explores the ideas the contributors of Urania held up as the pillars of their utopia; pacifism, femininity, and education, and argues that the reason for their Uranian utopia never materialising was the fundamental differences in class politics amongst the main editors and contributors of Urania.