In contemporary Western culture it’s easy to romanticize communal lifestyles, just as it’s easy to mock them. Some proponents have sought to distance themselves from mockery or sensationalism through different branding. One reason many residents prefer the term “intentional community” is the departure from the baggage of “commune,” with its whiff of naïve, oversexed counterculture. However, terms can blur as boundaries do, within a communal home.
Given the grand dramatic potential of combustible relationships and politics in an enclosed space, it’s not surprising that some excellent novels have emerged with communal living at their center. Two of my favorites, Emmanuelle Bayamack-Tam’s Arcadia and Joe Dunthorne’s Wild Abandon, follow young people grappling with the distance between their communities’ practices and those of the mainstream world, to both comic and moving effect.
But there’s also plenty of stellar nonfiction about intentional communities. This list focuses on the secular variety. The breadth of articles here hints at the diversity of living arrangements that all have one thing in common: people’s desire to live their ideals, in communion with others.
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