Pub Date : 2022-03-01DOI: 10.5325/utopianstudies.33.1.0018
Mark A. Tabone
abstract:This article discusses the politics of hope in N. K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy. Drawing on scholarship in utopian studies, science fiction studies, and Africana studies, it discusses the ways in which Jemisin uses two intentional community experiments depicted in the trilogy as "critical utopias" in order to work through problems involved in collective living, including the potentially anti-utopian aspects of these communities' shortcomings. Ultimately, despite the apocalyptic setting that has attracted the most attention from critics, this article argues that The Broken Earth ultimately affirms the necessity of utopian hope, even amid anti-utopian circumstances, and as such is an important and timely political statement. In a historical moment marked by social and racial strife and, in the literary realm, by what Sean Guynes calls "dystopia fatigue," Jemisin's trilogy does not promise utopia, but insists on the need for hope in seemingly hopeless times, the "anti-anti-utopian" orientation described by Fredric Jameson.
{"title":"Insistent Hope as Anti-Anti-Utopian Politics in N. K. Jemisin's Broken Earth Trilogy","authors":"Mark A. Tabone","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.33.1.0018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.33.1.0018","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:This article discusses the politics of hope in N. K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy. Drawing on scholarship in utopian studies, science fiction studies, and Africana studies, it discusses the ways in which Jemisin uses two intentional community experiments depicted in the trilogy as \"critical utopias\" in order to work through problems involved in collective living, including the potentially anti-utopian aspects of these communities' shortcomings. Ultimately, despite the apocalyptic setting that has attracted the most attention from critics, this article argues that The Broken Earth ultimately affirms the necessity of utopian hope, even amid anti-utopian circumstances, and as such is an important and timely political statement. In a historical moment marked by social and racial strife and, in the literary realm, by what Sean Guynes calls \"dystopia fatigue,\" Jemisin's trilogy does not promise utopia, but insists on the need for hope in seemingly hopeless times, the \"anti-anti-utopian\" orientation described by Fredric Jameson.","PeriodicalId":44751,"journal":{"name":"Utopian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41463744","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-03-01DOI: 10.5325/utopianstudies.33.1.0172
S. Fassbinder
{"title":"Becoming Utopian: The Culture and Politics of Radical Transformation","authors":"S. Fassbinder","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.33.1.0172","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.33.1.0172","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44751,"journal":{"name":"Utopian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44638076","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-03-01DOI: 10.5325/utopianstudies.33.1.0192
D. Henneböhl, Luciana Tamas
{"title":"Dystopian/Utopian Theatre in Britain after 2000 and Its Political Spaces, Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Forschung / Centre for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF), University of Bielefeld, March 11–13, 2021","authors":"D. Henneböhl, Luciana Tamas","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.33.1.0192","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.33.1.0192","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44751,"journal":{"name":"Utopian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41804964","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-02DOI: 10.5325/utopianstudies.32.3.0636
Guangzhao Lyu
abstract:As one of the most representative writers of contemporary Chinese science fiction, Hao Jingfang is well known for her world-building that blends the characteristics of both utopia and dystopia, especially in Vagabonds. In line with the classic utopian dialectic in Le Guin's The Dispossessed, Hao Jingfang has also set up two opposing worlds: the libertarian Earth that welcomes market competition and individualistic pursuit for capital and the egalitarian Martian Republic built upon scarcity and under the supervision of a central archive system that provides social welfare and protection. However, neither of the two societies is "perfect" enough to be called a true utopia. People in both societies see the other world as the negation of their own, though this, again, simply traps them in an unending cycle of "negating to negation." Through such a process of negative hermeneutics, Vagabonds provides a dialectical paradigm with which to interrogate China's postsocialist transition since the 1990s while invoking a utopian hope for a post-postsocialist alternative for China.
{"title":"A Nostalgic Return to the Future: The Utopian Dialectic in Hao Jingfang's Vagabonds","authors":"Guangzhao Lyu","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.32.3.0636","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.32.3.0636","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:As one of the most representative writers of contemporary Chinese science fiction, Hao Jingfang is well known for her world-building that blends the characteristics of both utopia and dystopia, especially in Vagabonds. In line with the classic utopian dialectic in Le Guin's The Dispossessed, Hao Jingfang has also set up two opposing worlds: the libertarian Earth that welcomes market competition and individualistic pursuit for capital and the egalitarian Martian Republic built upon scarcity and under the supervision of a central archive system that provides social welfare and protection. However, neither of the two societies is \"perfect\" enough to be called a true utopia. People in both societies see the other world as the negation of their own, though this, again, simply traps them in an unending cycle of \"negating to negation.\" Through such a process of negative hermeneutics, Vagabonds provides a dialectical paradigm with which to interrogate China's postsocialist transition since the 1990s while invoking a utopian hope for a post-postsocialist alternative for China.","PeriodicalId":44751,"journal":{"name":"Utopian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-12-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45244631","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-02DOI: 10.5325/utopianstudies.32.3.0513
F. Erisman
abstract:Among the women pilots prominent during the American between-the-wars years, Margery Brown (1892–1961) set no records and made no thrilling flights. During the "Golden Age of American Aviation" (1925–40), however, she published eight articles that established her as an articulate voice advocating aviation as a benefit to America's women. She postulated a technologically based utopia in which the transformative power of aviation would bring about a new freedom for those women who chose to embrace it. Flight would allow women to demonstrate their ability to master a new and sophisticated technology. They would gain moral discipline and would shed the cultural limitations that had for so long held them back. They would abolish gender discrimination in the air, achieving a transcendent degree of liberation and a new freedom, all gained through the agency of flight.
{"title":"Margery Brown's Air-Age Utopia for American Women","authors":"F. Erisman","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.32.3.0513","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.32.3.0513","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:Among the women pilots prominent during the American between-the-wars years, Margery Brown (1892–1961) set no records and made no thrilling flights. During the \"Golden Age of American Aviation\" (1925–40), however, she published eight articles that established her as an articulate voice advocating aviation as a benefit to America's women. She postulated a technologically based utopia in which the transformative power of aviation would bring about a new freedom for those women who chose to embrace it. Flight would allow women to demonstrate their ability to master a new and sophisticated technology. They would gain moral discipline and would shed the cultural limitations that had for so long held them back. They would abolish gender discrimination in the air, achieving a transcendent degree of liberation and a new freedom, all gained through the agency of flight.","PeriodicalId":44751,"journal":{"name":"Utopian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-12-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44742939","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-02DOI: 10.5325/utopianstudies.32.3.0652
Robertson
abstract:Settler colonialism lay at the heart of the dispute between Oregonians and the followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, who built a utopian community called Rajneeshpuram in central Oregon between 1981 and 1985. Rajneeshpuram's inhabitants believed their environmentalist ambitions would align them with settler-spirited and eco-minded Oregonians. However, Oregon's land use laws were rooted in the dispossession of Native land, a foundational theft that was reinstantiated in present-day hierarchies of land use and ownership. Many Oregonians simultaneously saw the residents of Rajneeshpuram as invaders and invoked frontier narratives in their defense, blending them with prevalent political and cultural concerns of contamination. Rajneesh and his followers' disregard for zoning laws and inflammatory tactics brought about their community's undoing. Rajneeshpuram thus challenged an arrangement that was the historical product of settler colonialism while replicating it. The conflict was mired in the idealistic—and incompatible—self-interest of opposing settler groups.
{"title":"The Closed West: Rajneeshpuram and the Failure of Utopia in Antelope, Oregon","authors":"Robertson","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.32.3.0652","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.32.3.0652","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:Settler colonialism lay at the heart of the dispute between Oregonians and the followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, who built a utopian community called Rajneeshpuram in central Oregon between 1981 and 1985. Rajneeshpuram's inhabitants believed their environmentalist ambitions would align them with settler-spirited and eco-minded Oregonians. However, Oregon's land use laws were rooted in the dispossession of Native land, a foundational theft that was reinstantiated in present-day hierarchies of land use and ownership. Many Oregonians simultaneously saw the residents of Rajneeshpuram as invaders and invoked frontier narratives in their defense, blending them with prevalent political and cultural concerns of contamination. Rajneesh and his followers' disregard for zoning laws and inflammatory tactics brought about their community's undoing. Rajneeshpuram thus challenged an arrangement that was the historical product of settler colonialism while replicating it. The conflict was mired in the idealistic—and incompatible—self-interest of opposing settler groups.","PeriodicalId":44751,"journal":{"name":"Utopian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-12-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44602377","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-02DOI: 10.5325/utopianstudies.32.3.0478
M. Bajaber
abstract:This article argues that the story of Adam's creation in the Quran establishes some early terminology on Islamic utopianism that later influenced the utopian drive in the Muslim world. It also argues that proper understanding of Islamic utopianism calls for Bloch's redefinition of the term and his differentiation between utopian function, content, and form and between abstract and concrete utopias. Throughout the article, the writer tracks the formation of abstract and concrete utopias in the Quranic story of Adam and his mission on Earth. The writer then explains and illustrates how the Quranic story established three terms crucial to the formation of many secular and religious utopian articulations in Islamic history: Ḵilāfa, istiʿmār, and ṣirāṭ mustaqīm. This article is useful to researchers interested in utopianism beyond the Western context because it provides preliminary research on Islamic utopianism that has been scarcely studied so far
本文认为，《古兰经》中亚当被创造的故事为伊斯兰乌托邦主义建立了一些早期术语，这些术语后来影响了穆斯林世界的乌托邦动力。它还认为，正确理解伊斯兰乌托邦主义需要布洛赫重新定义这个术语，并区分乌托邦的功能、内容和形式，以及抽象乌托邦和具体乌托邦。在整篇文章中，作者追溯了古兰经中亚当的故事和他在地球上的使命中抽象和具体乌托邦的形成。然后，作者解释并说明了《古兰经》故事如何建立了三个术语，这三个术语对伊斯兰历史上许多世俗和宗教乌托邦的形成至关重要:Ḵilāfa, isti al mār和ṣirāṭ mustaq ? m。这篇文章对对西方以外的乌托邦感兴趣的研究人员很有帮助，因为它对迄今为止很少研究的伊斯兰乌托邦主义提供了初步的研究
{"title":"Islamic Utopianism: Key Concepts from the Quranic Story of Adam's Creation","authors":"M. Bajaber","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.32.3.0478","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.32.3.0478","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:This article argues that the story of Adam's creation in the Quran establishes some early terminology on Islamic utopianism that later influenced the utopian drive in the Muslim world. It also argues that proper understanding of Islamic utopianism calls for Bloch's redefinition of the term and his differentiation between utopian function, content, and form and between abstract and concrete utopias. Throughout the article, the writer tracks the formation of abstract and concrete utopias in the Quranic story of Adam and his mission on Earth. The writer then explains and illustrates how the Quranic story established three terms crucial to the formation of many secular and religious utopian articulations in Islamic history: Ḵilāfa, istiʿmār, and ṣirāṭ mustaqīm. This article is useful to researchers interested in utopianism beyond the Western context because it provides preliminary research on Islamic utopianism that has been scarcely studied so far","PeriodicalId":44751,"journal":{"name":"Utopian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-12-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45373185","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-02DOI: 10.5325/utopianstudies.32.3.0582
R. Khosravi
abstract:Various manifestations of utopia, aspiring or conservative, idyllic or oppressive, credible or far-fetched, have long been elaborated in classics of literature, philosophy, and political theory. Nevertheless, utopian imagination has a tendency to transcend the boundaries of classic texts and debates. Presenting an account of an oriental utopia lost in history, this article revisits utopian imagination in ancient Iran. In particular, it discusses the construction of the utopian city of Varjamkard under Jamshid, one of the most popular Shahs or kings in Persian mythology. A paradise hidden from the world's eyes, Varjamkard was built to protect people from the dire winter that was the manifestation of evil on earth; but then this earthly paradise was lost because of Jamshid's disregard for a divine law. This paper aims to unearth an ancient utopian tradition, taking the concept of utopia to the less explored realms in history and times.
{"title":"Utopian Imagination in Ancient Iran: The Nostalgia of a Lost Paradise","authors":"R. Khosravi","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.32.3.0582","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.32.3.0582","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:Various manifestations of utopia, aspiring or conservative, idyllic or oppressive, credible or far-fetched, have long been elaborated in classics of literature, philosophy, and political theory. Nevertheless, utopian imagination has a tendency to transcend the boundaries of classic texts and debates. Presenting an account of an oriental utopia lost in history, this article revisits utopian imagination in ancient Iran. In particular, it discusses the construction of the utopian city of Varjamkard under Jamshid, one of the most popular Shahs or kings in Persian mythology. A paradise hidden from the world's eyes, Varjamkard was built to protect people from the dire winter that was the manifestation of evil on earth; but then this earthly paradise was lost because of Jamshid's disregard for a divine law. This paper aims to unearth an ancient utopian tradition, taking the concept of utopia to the less explored realms in history and times.","PeriodicalId":44751,"journal":{"name":"Utopian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-12-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41766112","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-02DOI: 10.5325/utopianstudies.32.3.0453
Sargent
abstract:An argument for the importance of utopianism and a reflection on the current state of utopian scholarship that was to have been given as a keynote address at the annual meeting of Utopian Studies Europe in Bucharest in 2020.
{"title":"Utopia Matters! The Importance of Utopianism and Utopian Scholarship","authors":"Sargent","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.32.3.0453","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.32.3.0453","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:An argument for the importance of utopianism and a reflection on the current state of utopian scholarship that was to have been given as a keynote address at the annual meeting of Utopian Studies Europe in Bucharest in 2020.","PeriodicalId":44751,"journal":{"name":"Utopian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-12-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47910758","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-12-02DOI: 10.5325/utopianstudies.32.3.0494
Michael Larson
abstract:Karen Tei Yamashita's novel Through the Arc of the Rain Forest anticipates what John Bellamy Foster calls the accumulation of catastrophe in the current stage of capitalism. The narrative demonstrates the inherent contradictions of global neoliberal capitalism and speculates about what will happen when these tendencies overwhelm all technocratic countermeasures. The novel also demonstrates how imagining the collapse of the current system allows us to glimpse its exterior. After the text's dystopian elements have reached their peak, the novel concludes with a multipronged ending that suggests several possibilities for the imaginary reconstitution of society or utopia. Crucially, all of these hopeful futures emerge from the "radical potential of catastrophe." Yamashita's novel demonstrates how humanity's despair is also likely to contain our best hope of reconfiguring society, our personal relations, and our orientation to the natural world.
{"title":"Accumulating and Realizing the Radical Potential of Catastrophe in Karen Tei Yamashita's: Through the Arc of the Rain Forest","authors":"Michael Larson","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.32.3.0494","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.32.3.0494","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:Karen Tei Yamashita's novel Through the Arc of the Rain Forest anticipates what John Bellamy Foster calls the accumulation of catastrophe in the current stage of capitalism. The narrative demonstrates the inherent contradictions of global neoliberal capitalism and speculates about what will happen when these tendencies overwhelm all technocratic countermeasures. The novel also demonstrates how imagining the collapse of the current system allows us to glimpse its exterior. After the text's dystopian elements have reached their peak, the novel concludes with a multipronged ending that suggests several possibilities for the imaginary reconstitution of society or utopia. Crucially, all of these hopeful futures emerge from the \"radical potential of catastrophe.\" Yamashita's novel demonstrates how humanity's despair is also likely to contain our best hope of reconfiguring society, our personal relations, and our orientation to the natural world.","PeriodicalId":44751,"journal":{"name":"Utopian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2021-12-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46879799","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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