Author: Victoria W. Wolcott
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438497504
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 180
Book Description
"Sometimes that's all it takes to save a world, you see. A new vision. A new way of thinking, appearing at just the right time." These words were spoken by a fictional character in N. K. Jemisin's 2019 utopian novella Emergency Skin. But the idea of saving the world through utopian imaginings has a deep and profound history. At this moment of rupture—with the related crises of the pandemic, racial uprisings, and climate change converging—Utopian Imaginings revisits this history to show how utopian thought and practice offer alternative paths to the future. The third book in the Humanities to the Rescue series, the volume examines both lived and imagined utopian communities from an interdisciplinary perspective. While attentive to the troubled and troubling elements of different spaces and collectives, Utopian Imaginings remains premised in hope, culminating in a series of inspiring exemplars of the utopian potential of the college classroom today.
Utopian Imaginings
Author: Victoria W. Wolcott
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438497504
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 180
Book Description
"Sometimes that's all it takes to save a world, you see. A new vision. A new way of thinking, appearing at just the right time." These words were spoken by a fictional character in N. K. Jemisin's 2019 utopian novella Emergency Skin. But the idea of saving the world through utopian imaginings has a deep and profound history. At this moment of rupture—with the related crises of the pandemic, racial uprisings, and climate change converging—Utopian Imaginings revisits this history to show how utopian thought and practice offer alternative paths to the future. The third book in the Humanities to the Rescue series, the volume examines both lived and imagined utopian communities from an interdisciplinary perspective. While attentive to the troubled and troubling elements of different spaces and collectives, Utopian Imaginings remains premised in hope, culminating in a series of inspiring exemplars of the utopian potential of the college classroom today.
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438497504
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 180
Book Description
"Sometimes that's all it takes to save a world, you see. A new vision. A new way of thinking, appearing at just the right time." These words were spoken by a fictional character in N. K. Jemisin's 2019 utopian novella Emergency Skin. But the idea of saving the world through utopian imaginings has a deep and profound history. At this moment of rupture—with the related crises of the pandemic, racial uprisings, and climate change converging—Utopian Imaginings revisits this history to show how utopian thought and practice offer alternative paths to the future. The third book in the Humanities to the Rescue series, the volume examines both lived and imagined utopian communities from an interdisciplinary perspective. While attentive to the troubled and troubling elements of different spaces and collectives, Utopian Imaginings remains premised in hope, culminating in a series of inspiring exemplars of the utopian potential of the college classroom today.
The Utopian Fantastic
Author: Martha A. Bartter
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313072612
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 166
Book Description
Utopia forms a major aspect of human desire, one that is as important as religion. Understanding utopia and the ways in which it can collapse into dystopia is crucial in many disciplines. Fantastic literature (including science fiction and fantasy) is the only form of literature that takes utopia/dystopia seriously. Therefore, analysis of these works provides a basis for serious experimentation in social science. In this volume, critics analyze contemporary literary thought experiments such as 1984 and We. They show how utopian experiments can easily slide into dystopia. Exploring these fictional sociocultural, political experiments gives us new ways to think about our lives and culture. While literature, history, and political science professors may find this book useful, it can also serve as a call to arms to anyone dedicated to maintaining freedom and humane living in the world today.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313072612
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 166
Book Description
Utopia forms a major aspect of human desire, one that is as important as religion. Understanding utopia and the ways in which it can collapse into dystopia is crucial in many disciplines. Fantastic literature (including science fiction and fantasy) is the only form of literature that takes utopia/dystopia seriously. Therefore, analysis of these works provides a basis for serious experimentation in social science. In this volume, critics analyze contemporary literary thought experiments such as 1984 and We. They show how utopian experiments can easily slide into dystopia. Exploring these fictional sociocultural, political experiments gives us new ways to think about our lives and culture. While literature, history, and political science professors may find this book useful, it can also serve as a call to arms to anyone dedicated to maintaining freedom and humane living in the world today.
The Utopian Constellation
Author: Chamsy el-Ojeili
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030325164
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 165
Book Description
This book examines the utopian dimension of contemporary social and political thought. Arguing for a utopian optic for the human sciences, el-Ojeili claims that major transformations of the utopian constellation have occurred since the end of the twentieth century. Following a survey of major utopian shifts in the modern period, el-Ojeili focuses on three spaces within today’s utopian constellation. At the liberal centre, we see a splintering effect, particularly after the global financial crisis of 2008: a contingent neo-liberalism, a neo-Keynesian turn, and a liberalism of fear. At the far-Right margin, we see the consolidation of post-fascism, a combination of “the future in the past”, elements of the post-modern present, and appeals to a novel future. Finally, at the far-Left, a new communism has emerged, with novel positions on resistance, maps of power, and a contemporary variant of the Left’s artistic critique. The Utopian Constellation will be of interest to scholars and students across the human sciences with an interest in utopian studies, ideological and discourse analysis, the sociology of knowledge, and the study of political culture.
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030325164
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 165
Book Description
This book examines the utopian dimension of contemporary social and political thought. Arguing for a utopian optic for the human sciences, el-Ojeili claims that major transformations of the utopian constellation have occurred since the end of the twentieth century. Following a survey of major utopian shifts in the modern period, el-Ojeili focuses on three spaces within today’s utopian constellation. At the liberal centre, we see a splintering effect, particularly after the global financial crisis of 2008: a contingent neo-liberalism, a neo-Keynesian turn, and a liberalism of fear. At the far-Right margin, we see the consolidation of post-fascism, a combination of “the future in the past”, elements of the post-modern present, and appeals to a novel future. Finally, at the far-Left, a new communism has emerged, with novel positions on resistance, maps of power, and a contemporary variant of the Left’s artistic critique. The Utopian Constellation will be of interest to scholars and students across the human sciences with an interest in utopian studies, ideological and discourse analysis, the sociology of knowledge, and the study of political culture.
Blue Sky Dream
Author: David Beers
Publisher: Doubleday
ISBN: 0307819094
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 318
Book Description
In Blue Sky Dream: A Memoir of America’s Fall from Grace, award-winner David Beers offers a powerful, personal vision of the rise and fall of the American middle class. Here is a dazzling literary chronicle of a family, a people, and a nation: the “blue sky tribe” of ever-optimistic middle-class Americans who believed in something called the American Dream, then woke up one day to discover it was gone. Blue Sky Dream is a book incredibly rich in ideas, in ways of seeing the recent past with stunning clarity. David Beers explores issues that define our times—downsizing, middle-class anxiety, the profound anger with government, the sense that something has gone awry with the United States—with such skill, personal immediacy, and compassion that readers will see their own histories in his prose. Blue Sky Dream can rightly be called a communal memoir, because in telling his family’s tale—growing tensions and disillusionment in their suburban paradise, a son rejecting his parents’ values, one sudden and inexplicable moment of violence—Beers tells the story of his people, the blue sky tribe “who imagined ourselves to be living the inevitable future, and are very surprised today to discover we were but a strange and aberrant moment that is now receding into history.”
Publisher: Doubleday
ISBN: 0307819094
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 318
Book Description
In Blue Sky Dream: A Memoir of America’s Fall from Grace, award-winner David Beers offers a powerful, personal vision of the rise and fall of the American middle class. Here is a dazzling literary chronicle of a family, a people, and a nation: the “blue sky tribe” of ever-optimistic middle-class Americans who believed in something called the American Dream, then woke up one day to discover it was gone. Blue Sky Dream is a book incredibly rich in ideas, in ways of seeing the recent past with stunning clarity. David Beers explores issues that define our times—downsizing, middle-class anxiety, the profound anger with government, the sense that something has gone awry with the United States—with such skill, personal immediacy, and compassion that readers will see their own histories in his prose. Blue Sky Dream can rightly be called a communal memoir, because in telling his family’s tale—growing tensions and disillusionment in their suburban paradise, a son rejecting his parents’ values, one sudden and inexplicable moment of violence—Beers tells the story of his people, the blue sky tribe “who imagined ourselves to be living the inevitable future, and are very surprised today to discover we were but a strange and aberrant moment that is now receding into history.”
Utopian Imagination and Eighteenth Century Fiction
Author: Christine Rees
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317898168
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
Utopian fiction was a particularly rich and important genre during the eighteenth century. It was during this period that a relatively new phenomenon appeared: the merging of utopian writing per se with other fictional genres, such as the increasingly dominant novel. However, while early modern and nineteenth and twentieth century utopias have been the focus of much attention, the eighteenth century has largely been neglected. Utopian Imagination and Eighteenth Century Fiction combines these major areas of interest, interpreting some of the most fascinating and innovative fictions of the period and locating them in a continuing tradition of utopian writing which stretches back through the Renaissance to the Ancient World. Begining with a survey of the recurrent topics in utopian writing - power structures in the state, money, food, sex, the role of women, birth, education and death - the book brings together canonical eighteenth century texts countaining powerful utopian elements, such as Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels and Rasselas, and less familiar works, to examine the reworking of these topics in a new context. The unfamiliar texts, including Gaudentio di Lucca, are described in detail to give students an idea of relevant material across a broad area. A section is devoted specifically to women writes, an area which has become the focus of attention. The mixture of texts provides a useful cross-reference for students tackling the subject from various perspectives and the comprehensive bibliography provides a valuable tool for those with general or specific interests
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317898168
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
Utopian fiction was a particularly rich and important genre during the eighteenth century. It was during this period that a relatively new phenomenon appeared: the merging of utopian writing per se with other fictional genres, such as the increasingly dominant novel. However, while early modern and nineteenth and twentieth century utopias have been the focus of much attention, the eighteenth century has largely been neglected. Utopian Imagination and Eighteenth Century Fiction combines these major areas of interest, interpreting some of the most fascinating and innovative fictions of the period and locating them in a continuing tradition of utopian writing which stretches back through the Renaissance to the Ancient World. Begining with a survey of the recurrent topics in utopian writing - power structures in the state, money, food, sex, the role of women, birth, education and death - the book brings together canonical eighteenth century texts countaining powerful utopian elements, such as Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels and Rasselas, and less familiar works, to examine the reworking of these topics in a new context. The unfamiliar texts, including Gaudentio di Lucca, are described in detail to give students an idea of relevant material across a broad area. A section is devoted specifically to women writes, an area which has become the focus of attention. The mixture of texts provides a useful cross-reference for students tackling the subject from various perspectives and the comprehensive bibliography provides a valuable tool for those with general or specific interests
The Logic of Fantasy
Author: John Huntington
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231053785
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 230
Book Description
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231053785
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 230
Book Description
Imagining Collective Futures
Author: Constance de Saint-Laurent
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319760513
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 301
Book Description
It is a commonly held assumption among cultural, social, and political psychologists that imagining the future of societies we live in has the potential to change how we think and act in the world. However little research has been devoted to whether this effect exists in collective imaginations, of social groups, communities and nations, for instance. This book explores the part that imagination and creativity play in the construction of collective futures, and the diversity of outlets in which these are presented, from fiction and cultural symbols to science and technology. The authors discuss this effect in social phenomena such as in intergroup conflict and social change, and focus on several cases studies to illustrate how the imagination of collective futures can guide social and political action. This book brings together theoretical and empirical contributions from cultural, social, and political psychology to offer insight into our constant (re)imagination of the societies in which we live.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319760513
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 301
Book Description
It is a commonly held assumption among cultural, social, and political psychologists that imagining the future of societies we live in has the potential to change how we think and act in the world. However little research has been devoted to whether this effect exists in collective imaginations, of social groups, communities and nations, for instance. This book explores the part that imagination and creativity play in the construction of collective futures, and the diversity of outlets in which these are presented, from fiction and cultural symbols to science and technology. The authors discuss this effect in social phenomena such as in intergroup conflict and social change, and focus on several cases studies to illustrate how the imagination of collective futures can guide social and political action. This book brings together theoretical and empirical contributions from cultural, social, and political psychology to offer insight into our constant (re)imagination of the societies in which we live.
The Last Utopians
Author: Michael Robertson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691202869
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 330
Book Description
The Last Utopians delves into the biographies of four key figures--Edward Bellamy, William Morris, Edward Carpenter, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman--who lived during an extraordinary period of literary and social experimentation. The publication of Bellamy's Looking Backward in 1888 opened the floodgates of an unprecedented wave of utopian writing. Morris, the Arts and Crafts pioneer, was a committed socialist whose News from Nowhere envisions a workers' Arcadia. Carpenter boldly argued that homosexuals constitute a utopian vanguard. Gilman, a women's rights activist and the author of "The Yellow Wallpaper," wrote numerous utopian fictions, including Herland, a visionary tale of an all-female society. These writers, Robertson shows, shared a belief in radical equality, imagining an end to class and gender hierarchies and envisioning new forms of familial and romantic relationships. They held liberal religious beliefs about a universal spirit uniting humanity. They believed in social transformation through nonviolent means and were committed to living a simple life rooted in a restored natural world. And their legacy remains with us today, as Robertson describes in entertaining firsthand accounts of contemporary utopianism, ranging from Occupy Wall Street to a Radical Faerie retreat.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691202869
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 330
Book Description
The Last Utopians delves into the biographies of four key figures--Edward Bellamy, William Morris, Edward Carpenter, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman--who lived during an extraordinary period of literary and social experimentation. The publication of Bellamy's Looking Backward in 1888 opened the floodgates of an unprecedented wave of utopian writing. Morris, the Arts and Crafts pioneer, was a committed socialist whose News from Nowhere envisions a workers' Arcadia. Carpenter boldly argued that homosexuals constitute a utopian vanguard. Gilman, a women's rights activist and the author of "The Yellow Wallpaper," wrote numerous utopian fictions, including Herland, a visionary tale of an all-female society. These writers, Robertson shows, shared a belief in radical equality, imagining an end to class and gender hierarchies and envisioning new forms of familial and romantic relationships. They held liberal religious beliefs about a universal spirit uniting humanity. They believed in social transformation through nonviolent means and were committed to living a simple life rooted in a restored natural world. And their legacy remains with us today, as Robertson describes in entertaining firsthand accounts of contemporary utopianism, ranging from Occupy Wall Street to a Radical Faerie retreat.
Marx, Hayek, and Utopia
Author: Chris Matthew Sciabarra
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791426159
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 194
Book Description
Develops a critique of utopianism through a comparison of the works of Karl Marx and F. A. Hayek, challenging conventional views of both Marxian and Hayekian thought.
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791426159
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 194
Book Description
Develops a critique of utopianism through a comparison of the works of Karl Marx and F. A. Hayek, challenging conventional views of both Marxian and Hayekian thought.
Supersex
Author: Anna Peppard
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477321608
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 385
Book Description
2021 Comic Studies Society Prize for Edited Collection From Superman and Batman to the X-Men and Young Avengers, Supersex interrogates the relationship between heroism and sexuality, shedding new light on our fantasies of both. From Superman, created in 1938, to the transmedia DC and Marvel universes of today, superheroes have always been sexy. And their sexiness has always been controversial, inspiring censorship and moral panic. Yet though it has inspired jokes and innuendos, accusations of moral depravity, and sporadic academic discourse, the topic of superhero sexuality is like superhero sexuality itself—seemingly obvious yet conspicuously absent. Supersex: Sexuality, Fantasy, and the Superhero is the first scholarly book specifically devoted to unpacking the superhero genre’s complicated relationship with sexuality. Exploring sexual themes and imagery within mainstream comic books, television shows, and films as well as independent and explicitly pornographic productions catering to various orientations and kinks, Supersex offers a fresh—and lascivious—perspective on the superhero genre’s historical and contemporary popularity. Across fourteen essays touching on Superman, Batman, the X-Men, and many others, Anna F. Peppard and her contributors present superhero sexuality as both dangerously exciting and excitingly dangerous, encapsulating the superhero genre’s worst impulses and its most productively rebellious ones. Supersex argues that sex is at the heart of our fascination with superheroes, even—and sometimes especially—when the capes and tights stay on.
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477321608
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 385
Book Description
2021 Comic Studies Society Prize for Edited Collection From Superman and Batman to the X-Men and Young Avengers, Supersex interrogates the relationship between heroism and sexuality, shedding new light on our fantasies of both. From Superman, created in 1938, to the transmedia DC and Marvel universes of today, superheroes have always been sexy. And their sexiness has always been controversial, inspiring censorship and moral panic. Yet though it has inspired jokes and innuendos, accusations of moral depravity, and sporadic academic discourse, the topic of superhero sexuality is like superhero sexuality itself—seemingly obvious yet conspicuously absent. Supersex: Sexuality, Fantasy, and the Superhero is the first scholarly book specifically devoted to unpacking the superhero genre’s complicated relationship with sexuality. Exploring sexual themes and imagery within mainstream comic books, television shows, and films as well as independent and explicitly pornographic productions catering to various orientations and kinks, Supersex offers a fresh—and lascivious—perspective on the superhero genre’s historical and contemporary popularity. Across fourteen essays touching on Superman, Batman, the X-Men, and many others, Anna F. Peppard and her contributors present superhero sexuality as both dangerously exciting and excitingly dangerous, encapsulating the superhero genre’s worst impulses and its most productively rebellious ones. Supersex argues that sex is at the heart of our fascination with superheroes, even—and sometimes especially—when the capes and tights stay on.