The “future of work” has long been a topic that has fascinated economists, sociologists and philosophers, and it has been a topic of broader political and cultural discussions already in the past. While some thinkers predicted dystopian scenarios involving mass unemployment and subjection to all-powerful machines, others hoped for improvements, for instance, in the form of radically shortened working hours. Yet others started practical experiments, such as utopian settlements with integrated working communities. This international conference will return to such “past futures of work” in order to contextualize and historicize the current debates. The conference will explore examples and cases of “past futures of work” from around the globe and discuss their meaning for the present.