The American Utopia

The American Utopia PDF Author: Ėduard I︠A︡kovlevich Batalov
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Collective settlements
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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The American Utopia

The American Utopia PDF Author: Ėduard I︠A︡kovlevich Batalov
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Collective settlements
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description


Utopia and Terror in Contemporary American Fiction

Utopia and Terror in Contemporary American Fiction PDF Author: Judie Newman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136774874
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
This book examines the quest for/failure of Utopia across a range of contemporary American/transnational fictions in relation to terror and globalization through authors such as Susan Choi, André Dubus, Dalia Sofer, and John Updike. While recent critical thinkers have reengaged with Utopia, the possibility of terror — whether state or non-state, external or homegrown — shadows Utopian imaginings. Terror and Utopia are linked in fiction through the exploration of the commodification of affect, a phenomenon of a globalized world in which feelings are managed, homogenized across cultures, exaggerated, or expunged according to a dominant model. Narrative approaches to the terrorist offer a means to investigate the ways in which fiction can resist commodification of affect, and maintain a reasoned but imaginative vision of possibilities for human community. Newman explores topics such as the first American bestseller with a Muslim protagonist, the links between writer and terrorist, the work of Iranian-Jewish Americans, and the relation of race and religion to Utopian thought.

American Utopia

American Utopia PDF Author: Peter Swirski
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429628137
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
From Black Tuesday to the White House, from Plato to Robert Nozick, from Eugene Debs to Richard Nixon, from Peter Cornelis Plockhoy to the hippie communes of the Sixties, from universal basic income to utopian basic income, from proverbial wisdom to multilevel selection, from Big Data to paleomorality, from Prisoner’s Dilemma to social-engineering Israeli kindergartens, from time travel to gene engineering, from the pretzel logic of meritocracy to deaggressing humanity, American Utopia maps the pitfalls and windfalls of social reform in the name of the human use of human beings. Interrogating the assumptions behind four outré utopias by Thomas M. Disch, Bernard Malamud, Kurt Vonnegut, and Margaret Atwood, the book interrogates the assumptions that have historically been central to the utopian project. Whence the seeds of social discontent? Whence our taste for egoism and altruism? For waging war and waging peace? Can we bioengineer human nature to specifications? Should we? Who makes better guardians: humans or machines? And who will guard the guardians?

C Wright Mills An American Utopia

C Wright Mills An American Utopia PDF Author: Irving Lewis Horowitz
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 143910624X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 636

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Book Description
A biography of legendary sociologist C. Wright Mills, author of The Power Elite and White Collar, among other works, by eminent sociologist Irving L. Horowitz. Charles Wright Mills (1916-1962) was a famed sociologist, social commentator and critic. Noted for his anti-authoritarian, flamboyant character and radical ideas, he has been described as an ‘American Utopian’ – committed to social change, angered by the oppression he saw around him, and critical of what he saw as evidence of U.S. imperialism. His legacy includes a series of classic books – including The Power Elite, White Collar, and The Sociological Imagination -- and he has made a distinctive contribution to American sociological theory, especially in the area of class, power and social structure.

An American Utopia

An American Utopia PDF Author: Fredric Jameson
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1784784532
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
Controversial manifesto by acclaimed cultural theorist debated by leading writers Fredric Jameson’s pathbreaking essay “An American Utopia” radically questions standard leftist notions of what constitutes an emancipated society. Advocated here are—among other things—universal conscription, the full acknowledgment of envy and resentment as a fundamental challenge to any communist society, and the acceptance that the division between work and leisure cannot be overcome. To create a new world, we must first change the way we envision the world. Jameson’s text is ideally placed to trigger a debate on the alternatives to global capitalism. In addition to Jameson’s essay, the volume includes responses from philosophers and political and cultural analysts, as well as an epilogue from Jameson himself. Many will be appalled at what they will encounter in these pages—there will be blood! But perhaps one has to spill such (ideological) blood to give the Left a chance. Contributing are Kim Stanley Robinson, Jodi Dean, Saroj Giri, Agon Hamza, Kojin Karatani, Frank Ruda, Alberto Toscano, Kathi Weeks, and Slavoj Žižek.

Designing Modern America

Designing Modern America PDF Author: Christopher Innes
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300129556
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
From the 1920s through the 1950s, two individuals, Joseph Urban and Norman Bel Geddes, did more, by far, to create the image of “America” and make it synonymous with modernity than any of their contemporaries. Urban and Bel Geddes were leading Broadway stage designers and directors who turned their prodigious talents to other projects, becoming mavericks first in industrial design and then in commercial design, fashion, architecture, and more. The two men gave shape to the most quintessential symbols of the modern American lifestyle, including movies, cars, department stores, and nightclubs, along with private homes, kitchens, stoves, fridges, magazines, and numerous household furnishings. Illustrated with more than 130 photographs of their influential designs, this book tells the engrossing story of Urban and Bel Geddes. Christopher Innes shows how these two men with a background in theater lent dramatic flair to everything they designed and how this theatricality gave the distinctive modernity they created such wide appeal. If the American lifestyle has been much imitated across the globe over the past fifty years, says Innes, it is due in large measure to the designs of Urban and Bel Geddes. Together they were responsible for creating what has been called the “Golden Age” of American culture.

The Roots of the Modern American Empire

The Roots of the Modern American Empire PDF Author: William Appleman Williams
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 580

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Walt's Utopia

Walt's Utopia PDF Author: Priscilla Hobbs
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476693358
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
The "Happiest Place on Earth" opened in 1955 during a trying time in American life--the Cold War. Disneyland was envisioned as a utopian resort where families could play together and escape the tension of the "real world." Since its construction, the park has continually been updated to reflect changing American culture. The park's themed features are based on familiar Disney stories and American history and folklore. They reflect the hopes of a society trying to understand itself in the wake of World War II. This second edition expands its perspective in response to, among other things, the cultural shifts brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic. New and updated chapters endeavor to hold Disney accountable: not accountability for misdeeds, but its accountability to include everyone, as American mythmakers and cultural titans.

American Utopia and Social Engineering in Literature, Social Thought, and Political History

American Utopia and Social Engineering in Literature, Social Thought, and Political History PDF Author: Peter Swirski
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136723390
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
The United States today is afflicted with political alienation, militarized violence, institutionalized poverty, and social agony. Worst of all, perhaps, it is afflicted with chronic and acute ahistoricism. America insist on ignoring the context of its present dilemmas. It insists on forgetting what preceded the headlines of today and on denying continuity with history. It insists, in short, on its exceptionalism. American Utopia and Social Engineering sets out to correct this amnesia. It misses no opportunity to flesh out both the historical premises and the political promises behind the social policies and political events of the period. These interdisciplinary concerns provide, in turn, the framework for the analyses of works of American literature that mirror their times and mores. Novels considered include: B.F. Skinner and Walden Two (1948), easily the most scandalous utopia of the century, if not of all times; Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962), an anatomy of political disfranchisement American-style; Bernard Malamud’s God’s Grace (1982), a neo-Darwinian beast fable about morality in the thermonuclear age; Walker Percy’s The Thanatos Syndrome (1986), a diagnostic novel about engineering violence out of America’s streets and minds; and Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America (2004), an alternative history of homegrown ‘soft’ fascism. With the help of the five novels and the social models outlined therein, Peter Swirski interrogates key aspects of sociobiology and behavioural psychology, voting and referenda procedures, morality and altruism, multilevel selection and proverbial wisdom, violence and chip-implant technology, and the adaptive role of emotions in our private and public lives.

Higher Ground

Higher Ground PDF Author: Sally Kitch
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226438566
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
Many feminists love a utopia—the idea of restarting humanity from scratch or transforming human nature in order to achieve a prescribed future based on feminist visions. Some scholars argue that feminist utopian fiction can be used as a template for creating such a future. However, Sally L. Kitch argues that associating feminist thought with utopianism is a mistake. Drawing on the history of utopian thought, as well as on her own research on utopian communities, Kitch defines utopian thinking, explores the pitfalls of pursuing social change based on utopian ideas, and argues for a "higher ground" —a contrasting approach she calls realism. Replacing utopianism with realism helps to eliminate self-defeating notions in feminist theory, such as false generalization, idealization, and unnecessary dichotomies. Realistic thought, however, allows feminist theory to respond to changing circumstances, acknowledge sameness as well as difference, value the past and the present, and respect ideological give-and-take. An important critique of feminist thought, Kitch concludes with a clear, exciting vision for a feminist future without utopia.