Pub Date : 2023-07-01DOI: 10.5325/utopianstudies.34.2.0359
Mark S. Jendrysik
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Pub Date : 2023-07-01DOI: 10.5325/utopianstudies.34.2.0350
Ali Rıza Taşkale
abstract:The concept of “boring dystopia,” a term coined by Mark Fisher, describes the banal and mildly coercive signs that are prevalent in contemporary neoliberal society. It is characterized by a pervasive sense of boredom, banality, and total alienation, which arises from the depletion of social connections caused by free-market fundamentalism and consumer culture. For the author, Edward Hopper’s paintings embody this sense of dystopia, as they depict deserted cityscapes and isolated figures, creating a vision of a society where human connection and interaction have broken down. The COVID-19 pandemic response has further highlighted the erosion of empathy and compassion under neoliberal capitalism, making Fisher’s call for collective action and the creation of new forms of community and solidarity even more urgent. Edward Hopper’s haunting art reminds us that we are already living in a dystopia, and that it is crucial to confront this dystopian reality and imagine new possibilities for the future.
{"title":"Art of Dystopia: Why Edward Hopper Paintings Haunt the Present Moment","authors":"Ali Rıza Taşkale","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.34.2.0350","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.34.2.0350","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:The concept of “boring dystopia,” a term coined by Mark Fisher, describes the banal and mildly coercive signs that are prevalent in contemporary neoliberal society. It is characterized by a pervasive sense of boredom, banality, and total alienation, which arises from the depletion of social connections caused by free-market fundamentalism and consumer culture. For the author, Edward Hopper’s paintings embody this sense of dystopia, as they depict deserted cityscapes and isolated figures, creating a vision of a society where human connection and interaction have broken down. The COVID-19 pandemic response has further highlighted the erosion of empathy and compassion under neoliberal capitalism, making Fisher’s call for collective action and the creation of new forms of community and solidarity even more urgent. Edward Hopper’s haunting art reminds us that we are already living in a dystopia, and that it is crucial to confront this dystopian reality and imagine new possibilities for the future.","PeriodicalId":44751,"journal":{"name":"Utopian Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":"350 - 358"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139365061","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 : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.5325/utopianstudies.34.1.0001
Sean Seeger
ABSTRACT Taking Yanis Varoufakis’s novel Another Now as a case study, this article introduces and makes an argument for a new concept in utopian studies: the postcritical utopia. It begins by making four claims: (1) that Varoufakis has written a utopian socialist novel; (2) that this represents a retrieval of a historical form of literature; (3) that the utopia at its center takes the form of a utopian blueprint; and (4) that two objections to this utopia, posed by one of its main characters, complicate our understanding of Another Now, with implications for how we ought to classify it. It is then argued that Another Now’s combination of a systematic utopian blueprint with insights drawn from the tradition of the critical utopia qualifies it as a postcritical utopia. The latter concept is then considered in the context of utopian studies scholarship.
{"title":"The Postcritical Utopia","authors":"Sean Seeger","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.34.1.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.34.1.0001","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Taking Yanis Varoufakis’s novel Another Now as a case study, this article introduces and makes an argument for a new concept in utopian studies: the postcritical utopia. It begins by making four claims: (1) that Varoufakis has written a utopian socialist novel; (2) that this represents a retrieval of a historical form of literature; (3) that the utopia at its center takes the form of a utopian blueprint; and (4) that two objections to this utopia, posed by one of its main characters, complicate our understanding of Another Now, with implications for how we ought to classify it. It is then argued that Another Now’s combination of a systematic utopian blueprint with insights drawn from the tradition of the critical utopia qualifies it as a postcritical utopia. The latter concept is then considered in the context of utopian studies scholarship.","PeriodicalId":44751,"journal":{"name":"Utopian Studies","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135533423","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 : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.5325/utopianstudies.34.1.0064
Leo Chu
ABSTRACT This article investigates the presentation of state power and affective life in the anime series Yuki Yuna Is a Hero. Juxtaposing the portrayal of the recruitment of female bodies and affects into the defense of the sovereign with the historical context of Imperial Japan, this article elaborates how the series captures the sovereign violence that creates biopolitical subjects in everyday life. It then illustrates how the series appropriates and subverts the genre conventions of the magical girl (mahō shōjo) anime through Giorgio Agamben’s idea of bare life and the state of exception. This subversion offers an opportunity to rethink the politics of disaster in contemporary Japan. Finally, this article probes into the utopian potential of the series by elucidating its affirmation of the relationality of life in an enchanted world.
{"title":"Divine Biopower: Sovereign Violence and Affective Life in the <i>Yuki Yuna Is a Hero</i> Series","authors":"Leo Chu","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.34.1.0064","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.34.1.0064","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article investigates the presentation of state power and affective life in the anime series Yuki Yuna Is a Hero. Juxtaposing the portrayal of the recruitment of female bodies and affects into the defense of the sovereign with the historical context of Imperial Japan, this article elaborates how the series captures the sovereign violence that creates biopolitical subjects in everyday life. It then illustrates how the series appropriates and subverts the genre conventions of the magical girl (mahō shōjo) anime through Giorgio Agamben’s idea of bare life and the state of exception. This subversion offers an opportunity to rethink the politics of disaster in contemporary Japan. Finally, this article probes into the utopian potential of the series by elucidating its affirmation of the relationality of life in an enchanted world.","PeriodicalId":44751,"journal":{"name":"Utopian Studies","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135533424","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 : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.5325/utopianstudies.34.1.0051
Aihua Chen, Yue Li
ABSTRACT The lullaby “The Meadow Song” in Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games trilogy provides a narrative fulcrum and plays a vital role in reinforcing these novels’ thematic concern. However, extant criticism has not given due attention to its utopian function. Drawing upon Ernest Bloch’s philosophy of music and other critics’ theories on green utopia, this article intends to argue that the lullaby fulfills the utopian function of fueling Katniss’s and other rebels’ utopian imagination to fight for a better world of justice, equality, and freedom. It also posits that the green utopian community inspired by the lullaby in the last book of the trilogy functions not as an escapist pursuit, but as a micropolitical alternative in an era of global capitalism.
{"title":"The Lullaby’s Utopian Function and the Green Utopian Imagination in Suzanne Collins’s <i>The Hunger Games</i> Trilogy","authors":"Aihua Chen, Yue Li","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.34.1.0051","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.34.1.0051","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The lullaby “The Meadow Song” in Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games trilogy provides a narrative fulcrum and plays a vital role in reinforcing these novels’ thematic concern. However, extant criticism has not given due attention to its utopian function. Drawing upon Ernest Bloch’s philosophy of music and other critics’ theories on green utopia, this article intends to argue that the lullaby fulfills the utopian function of fueling Katniss’s and other rebels’ utopian imagination to fight for a better world of justice, equality, and freedom. It also posits that the green utopian community inspired by the lullaby in the last book of the trilogy functions not as an escapist pursuit, but as a micropolitical alternative in an era of global capitalism.","PeriodicalId":44751,"journal":{"name":"Utopian Studies","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135533428","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 : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.5325/utopianstudies.34.1.0034
Mohamad Ghossein
ABSTRACT The present article examines the utopian and theological politics of the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ (Brethren of Purity). I focus on the Ikhwān’s elusive “virtuous city,” a harmonious and righteous community situated on a wondrous island, where residents work in unison toward salvation by deferring to one creed. This city’s imagery is intimately tied to principal theological dimensions of their work. Through the virtuous city, the Ikhwān utilize the imagery of estrangement to elucidate their theological position on the soul’s imprisonment in the body. But there is another, subtler dimension to their utopianism. I argue that the Ikhwānian utopia serves as a juxtaposition to their Muslim society, which they thought was afflicted by credal divisions. Accordingly, their utopia seamlessly weaves together a synthetic narrative about eschatology (i.e., the afterlife) and an empirical critique of their contemporary society. Additionally, this paper contributes to the development of scholarship on medieval Islamic utopianism.
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Pub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.5325/utopianstudies.34.1.0132
Rhiannon Firth
Author Rizwaan Sabir, as a then-MA student at Nottingham University, became known as one-half of the “Nottingham Two” following his arrest along with Hicham Yezza in May 2008. They were detained for six days without charge on suspicion of terrorism for the possession of a document titled the Al Qaeda Training Manual, which was freely available on the internet and from bookstores. Sabir had downloaded it from a US government website for use as primary source material in his proposed PhD research on armed Muslim groups. But Sabir’s arrest, detention, interrogation, and release without charge takes up only about one-fifth of the pages; the remainder covers subsequent events revealing the extent of the surveillance to which he was subject, and his increasing awareness of information held about him not only by the police but by a dizzying array of interconnected authorities. These events include several stop-and-searches by the roadside (each a frightening and infuriating story in its own right), detentions at the border, and an attempt by the UK military to recruit him into their psychological warfare unit. These events occurred more than seven years after the 9/11 attacks that haunt the book, forming a backdrop of ever-increasing securitization against the everyday lives of Muslims in the West. These historical conditions and their political, social and psychological consequences are the subject of the book, as we witness the development of Sabir’s complex trauma and psychological distress.A gripping read from start to finish, the book is a standalone must-read; moreover, The Suspect is not just relevant but indeed essential reading for any scholar of utopia. The book contains a foreword by Hicham Yezza, arrested alongside Sabir, who commends the work for its skillful delineation of “the contours of the intricate lattice of personal, institutional, political, and ideological forces that led to our absurd, preposterous arrests on our university campus for suspected terrorism, and their long-drawn aftermath” (xi). The afterword by lawyer Aamer Anwar situates Sabir’s story in his broader experience of working with Muslims in the British legal system, arguing that while Sabir’s story is well told, it is by no means an isolated case: “it does not matter how educated or integrated we are into British society. . . . When a police officer or agent of the state wants to racially profile and investigate you in the post 9/11 world, they can act with almost total impunity” (195).At first glance, The Suspect is not self-evidently an academic book because it takes the form of a first-person account, broken into readable short chapters (33 chapters of around 5–10 pages each), which helps the reader digest sometimes disturbing material. It is written with a sense of humor: for example, detecting racial profiling when questioned by a border guard claiming to recognize Sabir’s face: “‘Have you been on any aid convoys to Syria?’” Sabir responds, “I have an extremely c
{"title":"The Suspect: Counterterrorism, Islam and the Security State","authors":"Rhiannon Firth","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.34.1.0132","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.34.1.0132","url":null,"abstract":"Author Rizwaan Sabir, as a then-MA student at Nottingham University, became known as one-half of the “Nottingham Two” following his arrest along with Hicham Yezza in May 2008. They were detained for six days without charge on suspicion of terrorism for the possession of a document titled the Al Qaeda Training Manual, which was freely available on the internet and from bookstores. Sabir had downloaded it from a US government website for use as primary source material in his proposed PhD research on armed Muslim groups. But Sabir’s arrest, detention, interrogation, and release without charge takes up only about one-fifth of the pages; the remainder covers subsequent events revealing the extent of the surveillance to which he was subject, and his increasing awareness of information held about him not only by the police but by a dizzying array of interconnected authorities. These events include several stop-and-searches by the roadside (each a frightening and infuriating story in its own right), detentions at the border, and an attempt by the UK military to recruit him into their psychological warfare unit. These events occurred more than seven years after the 9/11 attacks that haunt the book, forming a backdrop of ever-increasing securitization against the everyday lives of Muslims in the West. These historical conditions and their political, social and psychological consequences are the subject of the book, as we witness the development of Sabir’s complex trauma and psychological distress.A gripping read from start to finish, the book is a standalone must-read; moreover, The Suspect is not just relevant but indeed essential reading for any scholar of utopia. The book contains a foreword by Hicham Yezza, arrested alongside Sabir, who commends the work for its skillful delineation of “the contours of the intricate lattice of personal, institutional, political, and ideological forces that led to our absurd, preposterous arrests on our university campus for suspected terrorism, and their long-drawn aftermath” (xi). The afterword by lawyer Aamer Anwar situates Sabir’s story in his broader experience of working with Muslims in the British legal system, arguing that while Sabir’s story is well told, it is by no means an isolated case: “it does not matter how educated or integrated we are into British society. . . . When a police officer or agent of the state wants to racially profile and investigate you in the post 9/11 world, they can act with almost total impunity” (195).At first glance, The Suspect is not self-evidently an academic book because it takes the form of a first-person account, broken into readable short chapters (33 chapters of around 5–10 pages each), which helps the reader digest sometimes disturbing material. It is written with a sense of humor: for example, detecting racial profiling when questioned by a border guard claiming to recognize Sabir’s face: “‘Have you been on any aid convoys to Syria?’” Sabir responds, “I have an extremely c","PeriodicalId":44751,"journal":{"name":"Utopian Studies","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135533427","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 : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.5325/utopianstudies.34.1.0140
Jean-Michel Racault
Fénelon’s 1699 novel The Adventures of Telemachus—or more precisely, the epic poem in prose—was one of the major bestsellers in many European countries for nearly two centuries. The book inspired paintings, operas, fashions, and even wallpaper motifs. It gave birth to a literary subgenre, the “archeological novel,” such as Terrasson’s Sethos (1731) or Bernardin de Saint-Pierre’s L’Arcadie (1788), in which the action is located in an antique setting. Still part of French schools’ syllabi a century ago, this book mainly owes its survival today to highly specialized academic research, stimulated from time to time when an “Agrégation” program generates new publications, papers, and conferences, as happened in 2009–10. The situation is similar in English-speaking countries, if perhaps just a bit worse: new editions are scarce and generally based more or less on revised versions of eighteenth-century translations, such as those editions by John Hawkesworth’s (1768) or Tobias Smollett’s (1776).The publication by A. J. B. Cremer of an entirely new translation, featuring a close rendering of the French text into modern English and preserving the original’s formal dignity without resorting to a pastiche of the classical language, is therefore a landmark in the history of Fénelon’s reception, and in the valuation of Telemachus particularly. This edition, while intended for the general reader, includes most of what is expected of a scholarly edition. In a comparatively short introduction, the editor recalls the essential facts about the author’s background (as a descendent of high nobility) and about his ecclesiastic career, which was compromised by both his involvement in mystical spirituality (the quarrel over Quietism) and his critical attitude toward the absolutism of Louis XIV’s régime.In fact, Fénelon’s appointment as Archbishop of Cambrai (1695) was a kind of exile. In 1689, however, he was appointed tutor to Louis XIV’s seven-year-old grandson, the young Duke of Burgundy, second in the line of succession to the throne after his father (though both died prematurely). Fénelon wrote for this boy The Adventures of Telemachus as an educative fiction in the tradition of the “mirrors of Princes.” Of course, such a book was not intended for publication, and when it appeared in 1699—strangely enough, in a fully legal manner and with a printing privilege—it was against Fénelon’s will and in a very faulty form, which was corrected in later editions. An editor today therefore faces solving some highly complex textual problems, and choosing between the manuscript traditions. Cremer’s translation is based upon Jacques Le Brun’s authoritative text, published in Fénelon’s Œuvres, tome II (Paris: Gallimard, “Pléiade,” 1997).1After surveying the critical reception of Telemachus, particularly in England, starting at the text’s first publication and reaching the present time, the introduction discreetly hints at an apparent trend, among some interpretations, toward Chri
更重要的是，对于这本杂志的读者来说，乌托邦的叙事范围可能是它的资本方面，仅限于偶尔提到的几次(364 n. 68, 369 n. 118, 385 n. 303等)。虽然没有被编辑完全忽略，但文本的乌托邦共鸣在语境化方面几乎没有得到体现。对17世纪末的法国古典乌托邦文学来说，f<s:1>尼隆并非完全陌生;一篇社论注释(373 n. 172)引用了dr . McKee的一篇论文，该论文证明，令人惊讶的是，忒勒马科斯的Salentum市改革后的社会组织借用了Denis Vairasse的Histoire des s<s:1> varambes(1677-79)。但是，虽然f<s:1>尼隆和瓦拉塞将旅行叙事作为基本的结构元素，但他们构建乌托邦小说的模式却截然不同。在Foigny, Vairasse或Fontenelle的作品中，乌托邦的另类被完美地实现，并体现在一个空间的“别处”，位于非常遥远的地方，但与作者和读者共享相同的时间性。在《忒勒马科斯历险记》中，旅行发生在地中海的一个著名地区，并发生在特洛伊战争的遥远传说时期。忒勒马科斯访问了不同类型的社会和政治结构，年轻的王子在导师的分析帮助下，寻找最能激励他的人，因为他期待着他未来在伊萨卡王国的统治。因此，fsamuelon为乌托邦的新概念铺平了道路，不再被视为已达到完美的静态模式，而是一个多元化、动态但尚未实现的过程。这一关键转折预示了后来更现代的乌托邦概念。当然，编辑必须选择他认为对他的新版本最有意义的内容，他选择的是一个简短的概述，这是他不能受到指责的。然而，对于那些对乌托邦历史和乌托邦形式历史的学术研究感兴趣的读者来说，缺乏这种考虑是令人遗憾的。除了英文和法文的“精选参考书目”之外，克莱默的版本还包括几个附录，特别是一个年表和一个有用的注释，涉及到18世纪末出现的许多《忒勒马科斯》的英文翻译(至少有11个，有些重新发行了几次)。编辑并没有试图提供不同手稿和早期版本的变体——在忒勒马科斯的情况下，这是一项特别痛苦的任务，其结果可以在J.勒布伦的批评版本中找到。但是克雷默选择翻译了两份摘自f<e:1>通讯的文件，说明了这本书出版的情况——至少是f<e:1>通讯愿意透露的情况。附录还包括“经典参考文献的关键”、词汇表和索引。这个版本满足了所有的要求，一般预期在学术工作，但也满足了更一般的读者的需要，其高度可读的翻译和整洁和吸引人的生产价值，提供了一个经典的文本，使所有访问。
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Pub Date : 2023-03-01DOI: 10.5325/utopianstudies.34.1.0137
William James Metcalf
In the field of utopian studies, Lyman Tower Sargent is well known and respected globally. His new book, Rethinking Utopia and Utopianism, is well written, witty, and persuasively argued, reflecting on, and updating, his life’s work. It includes several previously published pieces, such as Sargent’s oft-cited “The Three Faces of Utopianism Revisited” (1994), along with his current thinking across the broad field of utopian studies.Sargent admits to naiveté when, as a young scholar in the 1960s, he set out to write a “history of utopian literature”—probably thinking it wouldn’t take long! This field, he soon found, ever expands the more one looks. Sargent continues to look for, and discover, examples from around the world—many of which he has made available online in Utopian Literature in English: An Annotated Bibliography from 1516 to the Present.1 But now, at eighty-two years of age, he accepts that this project will require “quite a few lifetimes, lifetimes that are not available to me, so I hope that others will take up these topics” (349).Sargent thinks utopianism is best understood as “social dreaming—the dreams and nightmares that concern the ways in which groups of people arrange their lives and which usually involve a radically different society” (7). Utopia, he points out, “expresses deep-seated needs, desires and hopes” (42). This, he asserts, is a universal phenomenon—part of being human—certainly not confined to the Western Christian tradition, as some scholars have argued.We must be careful, Sargent warns, not to equate utopia with perfection; utopias are about betterment, not perfection. He argues that equating utopia with perfection is a ruse employed “by those opposed to the idea that human beings can bring about significant social change and is intended to undermine that possibility” (323). Sargent argues that all humans “need the idea that a better life is possible” (325) and this is what utopianism provides.As someone who has spent much of my professional life studying intentional communities, I have always recognized that almost all such groups have an underlying utopian impulse. So I came to utopianism research as a subset of intentional communities research. Sargent, on the other hand, sees “communitarianism as a sub-category of utopianism” (85). He acknowledges that intentional community members are “trying to find better ways of living together, making decisions about all important aspects of life, whether it is political, economic, religious, or sexual. . . . They are actually doing with their own lives what literary utopias describe in words” (93). Perhaps our different paths are a bit like asking whether the chicken or egg came first?Sargent quite correctly observes that many intentional community members reject the label of “utopian” because they confuse it with the naïve, and unobtainable notion of perfection—and I have often observed the same. Nevertheless Sargent asserts “that continued utopian thinking is essential
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