A participant recently described Lothlorien Nature Sanctuary as "the island of misfit toys," highlighting both its internal diversity and its function as a sanctuary for difference. Lothlorien is a festival site, non-profit organization, forest preservation project and collective residence in Southern Indiana which qualifies by most standards as a utopian community. Its hundred acres are named after the last haven of the elves in J.R. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings.

Lothlorien provides an example of collective stewardship and cooperative economy in an area where private property and resource management are the norms. Its land is owned and run by the membership, and decision making is related to voluntary hours worked. The organization's artifacts, structures and land use are also unusual in the context of mainstream North America. The governing Council and general membership strive for sustainability in building, gardening and forestry. And the Neopagan and environmental influences evident in the material culture are combined with a commitment to religious freedom, so that the many shrines on the site may hold gnomes, madonnas or mirrors, gods, buddhas or fairies side by side.

Lothlorien's organization and social norms are thus in sharp contrast with the surrounding communities of North America. As an unusual enclave within a larger society, it implicitly offers to the latter both a critique and a cluster of alternative values and practices. In addition it has created a niche where some participants change, grow and find empowerment in an environment that is more accepting of difference than are most mainstream social circles.

This dissertation explores the role of one alternative community set within a modern state, with a focus on the lives of its individual participants. I argue that community experiments such as Lothlorien, and utopian imagination itself, can be forces for change and can provide important and neglected complements to social critique.