Author: Susan Buck-Morss
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262523318
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 410
Book Description
This study develops the notion of dreamworld as both a poetic description of a collective mental state and an analytical concept. Stressing the similarites between East/West the book examines extremes of mass utopia, dreamworld and catastrophe.
Dreamworld and Catastrophe
Author: Susan Buck-Morss
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262523318
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 410
Book Description
This study develops the notion of dreamworld as both a poetic description of a collective mental state and an analytical concept. Stressing the similarites between East/West the book examines extremes of mass utopia, dreamworld and catastrophe.
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262523318
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 410
Book Description
This study develops the notion of dreamworld as both a poetic description of a collective mental state and an analytical concept. Stressing the similarites between East/West the book examines extremes of mass utopia, dreamworld and catastrophe.
Catastrophe and Utopia
Author: Ferenc Laczo
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 311055934X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 363
Book Description
Catastrophe and Utopia studies the biographical trajectories, intellectual agendas, and major accomplishments of select Jewish intellectuals during the age of Nazism, and the partly simultaneous, partly subsequent period of incipient Stalinization. By focusing on the relatively underexplored region of Central and Eastern Europe – which was the primary centre of Jewish life prior to the Holocaust, served as the main setting of the Nazi genocide, but also had notable communities of survivors – the volume offers significant contributions to a European Jewish intellectual history of the twentieth century. Approaching specific historical experiences in their diverse local contexts, the twelve case studies explore how Jewish intellectuals responded to the unprecedented catastrophe, how they renegotiated their utopian commitments and how the complex relationship between the two evolved over time. They analyze proximate Jewish reactions to the most abysmal discontinuity represented by the Judeocide while also revealing more subtle lines of continuity in Jewish thinking. Ferenc Laczó is assistant professor in History at Maastricht University and Joachim von Puttkamer is professor of Eastern European History at Friedrich Schiller University Jena and director of the Imre Kertész Kolleg.
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 311055934X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 363
Book Description
Catastrophe and Utopia studies the biographical trajectories, intellectual agendas, and major accomplishments of select Jewish intellectuals during the age of Nazism, and the partly simultaneous, partly subsequent period of incipient Stalinization. By focusing on the relatively underexplored region of Central and Eastern Europe – which was the primary centre of Jewish life prior to the Holocaust, served as the main setting of the Nazi genocide, but also had notable communities of survivors – the volume offers significant contributions to a European Jewish intellectual history of the twentieth century. Approaching specific historical experiences in their diverse local contexts, the twelve case studies explore how Jewish intellectuals responded to the unprecedented catastrophe, how they renegotiated their utopian commitments and how the complex relationship between the two evolved over time. They analyze proximate Jewish reactions to the most abysmal discontinuity represented by the Judeocide while also revealing more subtle lines of continuity in Jewish thinking. Ferenc Laczó is assistant professor in History at Maastricht University and Joachim von Puttkamer is professor of Eastern European History at Friedrich Schiller University Jena and director of the Imre Kertész Kolleg.
The Concept of Utopia
Author: Ruth Levitas
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 9780815625131
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
Probes the contested concept of utopia, examining the different ways in which it has been used by commentators and theorists in both liberal and Marxist radiations. The works of Karl Mannheim, Georges Sorel, Ernst Bloch, William Morris, and Herbert Marcuse are studied. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 9780815625131
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
Probes the contested concept of utopia, examining the different ways in which it has been used by commentators and theorists in both liberal and Marxist radiations. The works of Karl Mannheim, Georges Sorel, Ernst Bloch, William Morris, and Herbert Marcuse are studied. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Sustainable Utopias
Author: Jennifer L. Allen
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674249143
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369
Book Description
To reclaim a sense of hope for the future, German activists in the late twentieth century engaged ordinary citizens in innovative projects that resisted alienation and disenfranchisement. By most accounts, the twentieth century was not kind to utopian thought. The violence of two world wars, Cold War anxieties, and a widespread sense of crisis after the 1973 global oil shock appeared to doom dreams of a better world. The eventual victory of capitalism and, seemingly, liberal democracy relieved some fears but exchanged them for complacency and cynicism. Not, however, in West Germany. Jennifer Allen showcases grassroots activism of the 1980s and 1990s that envisioned a radically different society based on community-centered politicsÑa society in which the democratization of culture and power ameliorated alienation and resisted the impotence of end-of-history narratives. BerlinÕs History Workshop liberated research from university confines by providing opportunities for ordinary people to write and debate the story of the nation. The Green Party made the politics of direct democracy central to its program. Artists changed the way people viewed and acted in public spaces by installing objects in unexpected environments, including the Stolpersteine: paving stones, embedded in residential sidewalks, bearing the names of Nazi victims. These activists went beyond just trafficking in ideas. They forged new infrastructures, spaces, and behaviors that gave everyday people real agency in their communities. Undergirding this activism was the environmentalist concept of sustainability, which demanded that any alternative to existing society be both enduring and adaptable. A rigorous but inspiring tale of hope in action, Sustainable Utopias makes the case that it is still worth believing in human creativity and the labor of citizenship.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674249143
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369
Book Description
To reclaim a sense of hope for the future, German activists in the late twentieth century engaged ordinary citizens in innovative projects that resisted alienation and disenfranchisement. By most accounts, the twentieth century was not kind to utopian thought. The violence of two world wars, Cold War anxieties, and a widespread sense of crisis after the 1973 global oil shock appeared to doom dreams of a better world. The eventual victory of capitalism and, seemingly, liberal democracy relieved some fears but exchanged them for complacency and cynicism. Not, however, in West Germany. Jennifer Allen showcases grassroots activism of the 1980s and 1990s that envisioned a radically different society based on community-centered politicsÑa society in which the democratization of culture and power ameliorated alienation and resisted the impotence of end-of-history narratives. BerlinÕs History Workshop liberated research from university confines by providing opportunities for ordinary people to write and debate the story of the nation. The Green Party made the politics of direct democracy central to its program. Artists changed the way people viewed and acted in public spaces by installing objects in unexpected environments, including the Stolpersteine: paving stones, embedded in residential sidewalks, bearing the names of Nazi victims. These activists went beyond just trafficking in ideas. They forged new infrastructures, spaces, and behaviors that gave everyday people real agency in their communities. Undergirding this activism was the environmentalist concept of sustainability, which demanded that any alternative to existing society be both enduring and adaptable. A rigorous but inspiring tale of hope in action, Sustainable Utopias makes the case that it is still worth believing in human creativity and the labor of citizenship.
Utopia/Dystopia
Author: Michael D. Gordin
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400834953
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 302
Book Description
The concepts of utopia and dystopia have received much historical attention. Utopias have traditionally signified the ideal future: large-scale social, political, ethical, and religious spaces that have yet to be realized. Utopia/Dystopia offers a fresh approach to these ideas. Rather than locate utopias in grandiose programs of future totality, the book treats these concepts as historically grounded categories and examines how individuals and groups throughout time have interpreted utopian visions in their daily present, with an eye toward the future. From colonial and postcolonial Africa to pre-Marxist and Stalinist Eastern Europe, from the social life of fossil fuels to dreams of nuclear power, and from everyday politics in contemporary India to imagined architectures of postwar Britain, this interdisciplinary collection provides new understandings of the utopian/dystopian experience. The essays look at such issues as imaginary utopian perspectives leading to the 1856-57 Xhosa Cattle Killing in South Africa, the functioning racist utopia behind the Rhodesian independence movement, the utopia of the peaceful atom and its global dissemination in the mid-1950s, the possibilities for an everyday utopia in modern cities, and how the Stalinist purges of the 1930s served as an extension of the utopian/dystopian relationship. The contributors are Dipesh Chakrabarty, Igal Halfin, Fredric Jameson, John Krige, Timothy Mitchell, Aditya Nigam, David Pinder, Marci Shore, Jennifer Wenzel, and Luise White.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400834953
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 302
Book Description
The concepts of utopia and dystopia have received much historical attention. Utopias have traditionally signified the ideal future: large-scale social, political, ethical, and religious spaces that have yet to be realized. Utopia/Dystopia offers a fresh approach to these ideas. Rather than locate utopias in grandiose programs of future totality, the book treats these concepts as historically grounded categories and examines how individuals and groups throughout time have interpreted utopian visions in their daily present, with an eye toward the future. From colonial and postcolonial Africa to pre-Marxist and Stalinist Eastern Europe, from the social life of fossil fuels to dreams of nuclear power, and from everyday politics in contemporary India to imagined architectures of postwar Britain, this interdisciplinary collection provides new understandings of the utopian/dystopian experience. The essays look at such issues as imaginary utopian perspectives leading to the 1856-57 Xhosa Cattle Killing in South Africa, the functioning racist utopia behind the Rhodesian independence movement, the utopia of the peaceful atom and its global dissemination in the mid-1950s, the possibilities for an everyday utopia in modern cities, and how the Stalinist purges of the 1930s served as an extension of the utopian/dystopian relationship. The contributors are Dipesh Chakrabarty, Igal Halfin, Fredric Jameson, John Krige, Timothy Mitchell, Aditya Nigam, David Pinder, Marci Shore, Jennifer Wenzel, and Luise White.
The Last Utopia
Author: Samuel Moyn
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674256522
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 346
Book Description
Human rights offer a vision of international justice that today’s idealistic millions hold dear. Yet the very concept on which the movement is based became familiar only a few decades ago when it profoundly reshaped our hopes for an improved humanity. In this pioneering book, Samuel Moyn elevates that extraordinary transformation to center stage and asks what it reveals about the ideal’s troubled present and uncertain future. For some, human rights stretch back to the dawn of Western civilization, the age of the American and French Revolutions, or the post–World War II moment when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was framed. Revisiting these episodes in a dramatic tour of humanity’s moral history, The Last Utopia shows that it was in the decade after 1968 that human rights began to make sense to broad communities of people as the proper cause of justice. Across eastern and western Europe, as well as throughout the United States and Latin America, human rights crystallized in a few short years as social activism and political rhetoric moved it from the hallways of the United Nations to the global forefront. It was on the ruins of earlier political utopias, Moyn argues, that human rights achieved contemporary prominence. The morality of individual rights substituted for the soiled political dreams of revolutionary communism and nationalism as international law became an alternative to popular struggle and bloody violence. But as the ideal of human rights enters into rival political agendas, it requires more vigilance and scrutiny than when it became the watchword of our hopes.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674256522
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 346
Book Description
Human rights offer a vision of international justice that today’s idealistic millions hold dear. Yet the very concept on which the movement is based became familiar only a few decades ago when it profoundly reshaped our hopes for an improved humanity. In this pioneering book, Samuel Moyn elevates that extraordinary transformation to center stage and asks what it reveals about the ideal’s troubled present and uncertain future. For some, human rights stretch back to the dawn of Western civilization, the age of the American and French Revolutions, or the post–World War II moment when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was framed. Revisiting these episodes in a dramatic tour of humanity’s moral history, The Last Utopia shows that it was in the decade after 1968 that human rights began to make sense to broad communities of people as the proper cause of justice. Across eastern and western Europe, as well as throughout the United States and Latin America, human rights crystallized in a few short years as social activism and political rhetoric moved it from the hallways of the United Nations to the global forefront. It was on the ruins of earlier political utopias, Moyn argues, that human rights achieved contemporary prominence. The morality of individual rights substituted for the soiled political dreams of revolutionary communism and nationalism as international law became an alternative to popular struggle and bloody violence. But as the ideal of human rights enters into rival political agendas, it requires more vigilance and scrutiny than when it became the watchword of our hopes.
Utopia from Thomas More to Walter Benjamin
Author: Miguel Abensour
Publisher: Univocal Publishing
ISBN: 9781945414008
Category : Utopian fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
"Utopia poses a question. Not simply in the sense of a problem to be resolved and at the same time eliminated . . . but in the sense that, within the economy of the human condition, utopia, the aim of social alterity--of all social otherness--is ceaselessly being reborn, coming back to life despite all the blows rained down upon it, as if human resistance had taken up residence within it." For the French philosopher Miguel Abensour, the fictional genre of utopia has provided thinkers and artists a fertile ground to explore for the past 500 years, both as a way to imagine new emancipatory practices of shared existence and as a tyrannical imposition of power. Here, Abensour's project is to examine the idea of utopia in two different but powerful moments in its trajectory: first, utopia's beginning, when Thomas More sought a path for justice through a world in transformation, and second, when utopia faced its greatest danger, the moment that Walter Benjamin called "catastrophe."
Publisher: Univocal Publishing
ISBN: 9781945414008
Category : Utopian fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
"Utopia poses a question. Not simply in the sense of a problem to be resolved and at the same time eliminated . . . but in the sense that, within the economy of the human condition, utopia, the aim of social alterity--of all social otherness--is ceaselessly being reborn, coming back to life despite all the blows rained down upon it, as if human resistance had taken up residence within it." For the French philosopher Miguel Abensour, the fictional genre of utopia has provided thinkers and artists a fertile ground to explore for the past 500 years, both as a way to imagine new emancipatory practices of shared existence and as a tyrannical imposition of power. Here, Abensour's project is to examine the idea of utopia in two different but powerful moments in its trajectory: first, utopia's beginning, when Thomas More sought a path for justice through a world in transformation, and second, when utopia faced its greatest danger, the moment that Walter Benjamin called "catastrophe."
Utopia or Oblivion
Author: R. Buckminster Fuller
Publisher: Estate of R. Buckminster Fuller
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Book Description
Utopia or Oblivion is a provocative blueprint for the future. This comprehensive volume is composed of essays derived from the lectures he gave all over the world during the 1960’s. Fuller’s thesis is that humanity – for the first time in its history – has the opportunity to create a world where the needs of 100% of humanity are met. “This is what man tends to call utopia. It’s a fairly small word, but inadequate to describe the extraordinary new freedom of man in a new relationship to universe — the alternative of which is oblivion.” R. Buckminster Fuller. Description by Lars Muller Publishers, courtesy of The Estate of Buckminster Fuller
Publisher: Estate of R. Buckminster Fuller
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 225
Book Description
Utopia or Oblivion is a provocative blueprint for the future. This comprehensive volume is composed of essays derived from the lectures he gave all over the world during the 1960’s. Fuller’s thesis is that humanity – for the first time in its history – has the opportunity to create a world where the needs of 100% of humanity are met. “This is what man tends to call utopia. It’s a fairly small word, but inadequate to describe the extraordinary new freedom of man in a new relationship to universe — the alternative of which is oblivion.” R. Buckminster Fuller. Description by Lars Muller Publishers, courtesy of The Estate of Buckminster Fuller
Utopianism for a Dying Planet
Author: Gregory Claeys
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691236682
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 608
Book Description
How the utopian tradition offers answers to today’s environmental crises In the face of Earth’s environmental breakdown, it is clear that technological innovation alone won’t save our planet. A more radical approach is required, one that involves profound changes in individual and collective behavior. Utopianism for a Dying Planet examines the ways the expansive history of utopian thought, from its origins in ancient Sparta and ideas of the Golden Age through to today's thinkers, can offer moral and imaginative guidance in the face of catastrophe. The utopian tradition, which has been critical of conspicuous consumption and luxurious indulgence, might light a path to a society that emphasizes equality, sociability, and sustainability. Gregory Claeys unfolds his argument through a wide-ranging consideration of utopian literature, social theory, and intentional communities. He defends a realist definition of utopia, focusing on ideas of sociability and belonging as central to utopian narratives. He surveys the development of these themes during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries before examining twentieth- and twenty-first-century debates about alternatives to consumerism. Claeys contends that the current global warming limit of 1.5C (2.7F) will result in cataclysm if there is no further reduction in the cap. In response, he offers a radical Green New Deal program, which combines ideas from the theory of sociability with proposals to withdraw from fossil fuels and cease reliance on unsustainable commodities. An urgent and comprehensive search for antidotes to our planet’s destruction, Utopianism for a Dying Planet asks for a revival of utopian ideas, not as an escape from reality, but as a powerful means of changing it.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691236682
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 608
Book Description
How the utopian tradition offers answers to today’s environmental crises In the face of Earth’s environmental breakdown, it is clear that technological innovation alone won’t save our planet. A more radical approach is required, one that involves profound changes in individual and collective behavior. Utopianism for a Dying Planet examines the ways the expansive history of utopian thought, from its origins in ancient Sparta and ideas of the Golden Age through to today's thinkers, can offer moral and imaginative guidance in the face of catastrophe. The utopian tradition, which has been critical of conspicuous consumption and luxurious indulgence, might light a path to a society that emphasizes equality, sociability, and sustainability. Gregory Claeys unfolds his argument through a wide-ranging consideration of utopian literature, social theory, and intentional communities. He defends a realist definition of utopia, focusing on ideas of sociability and belonging as central to utopian narratives. He surveys the development of these themes during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries before examining twentieth- and twenty-first-century debates about alternatives to consumerism. Claeys contends that the current global warming limit of 1.5C (2.7F) will result in cataclysm if there is no further reduction in the cap. In response, he offers a radical Green New Deal program, which combines ideas from the theory of sociability with proposals to withdraw from fossil fuels and cease reliance on unsustainable commodities. An urgent and comprehensive search for antidotes to our planet’s destruction, Utopianism for a Dying Planet asks for a revival of utopian ideas, not as an escape from reality, but as a powerful means of changing it.
A Paradise Built in Hell
Author: Rebecca Solnit
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101459018
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369
Book Description
The author of Men Explain Things to Me explores the moments of altruism and generosity that arise in the aftermath of disaster Why is it that in the aftermath of a disaster? whether manmade or natural?people suddenly become altruistic, resourceful, and brave? What makes the newfound communities and purpose many find in the ruins and crises after disaster so joyous? And what does this joy reveal about ordinarily unmet social desires and possibilities? In A Paradise Built in Hell, award-winning author Rebecca Solnit explores these phenomena, looking at major calamities from the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco through the 1917 explosion that tore up Halifax, Nova Scotia, the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, 9/11, and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. She examines how disaster throws people into a temporary utopia of changed states of mind and social possibilities, as well as looking at the cost of the widespread myths and rarer real cases of social deterioration during crisis. This is a timely and important book from an acclaimed author whose work consistently locates unseen patterns and meanings in broad cultural histories.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101459018
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369
Book Description
The author of Men Explain Things to Me explores the moments of altruism and generosity that arise in the aftermath of disaster Why is it that in the aftermath of a disaster? whether manmade or natural?people suddenly become altruistic, resourceful, and brave? What makes the newfound communities and purpose many find in the ruins and crises after disaster so joyous? And what does this joy reveal about ordinarily unmet social desires and possibilities? In A Paradise Built in Hell, award-winning author Rebecca Solnit explores these phenomena, looking at major calamities from the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco through the 1917 explosion that tore up Halifax, Nova Scotia, the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, 9/11, and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. She examines how disaster throws people into a temporary utopia of changed states of mind and social possibilities, as well as looking at the cost of the widespread myths and rarer real cases of social deterioration during crisis. This is a timely and important book from an acclaimed author whose work consistently locates unseen patterns and meanings in broad cultural histories.