Pub Date : 2022-03-01DOI: 10.5325/utopianstudies.33.1.0107
J. Bartles
abstract:The phrase "ambiguous utopia" was coined by Ursula K. Le Guin in the subtitle of her novel, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia (1974). That work appeared when utopian narratives had been displaced by dystopian imaginaries. This article embarks on a comparative analysis of three short stories: Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" (1973), Angélica Gorodischer's "Of Navigators" (1979), and N. K. Jemisin's "The Ones Who Stay and Fight" (2018). Each author installs ambiguity at the center of their open-ended utopian imaginaries as a way to challenge dogma, pessimism, and complacency. Le Guin interrogates the boundary between belief and knowledge to hold the threat of authoritarianism at bay. Gorodischer, a friend and contemporary of Le Guin, is considered a central figure of Argentine science fiction and fantasy. Her story imagines the discovery of a second Earth set in 1492 and highlights the need for utopianism to challenge the legacy of colonization. Finally, Jemisin's story is a critical homage to "Omelas." Jemisin shares the decolonial impetus of Gorodischer's fiction, and she constructs Um-Helat on an explicitly antiracist foundation. Instead of walking away, her characters actively fight the creeping threat of intolerance while working toward that better place.
{"title":"Navigating Uncertainty: The Ambiguous Utopias of Le Guin, Gorodischer, and Jemisin","authors":"J. Bartles","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.33.1.0107","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.33.1.0107","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:The phrase \"ambiguous utopia\" was coined by Ursula K. Le Guin in the subtitle of her novel, The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia (1974). That work appeared when utopian narratives had been displaced by dystopian imaginaries. This article embarks on a comparative analysis of three short stories: Ursula K. Le Guin's \"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas\" (1973), Angélica Gorodischer's \"Of Navigators\" (1979), and N. K. Jemisin's \"The Ones Who Stay and Fight\" (2018). Each author installs ambiguity at the center of their open-ended utopian imaginaries as a way to challenge dogma, pessimism, and complacency. Le Guin interrogates the boundary between belief and knowledge to hold the threat of authoritarianism at bay. Gorodischer, a friend and contemporary of Le Guin, is considered a central figure of Argentine science fiction and fantasy. Her story imagines the discovery of a second Earth set in 1492 and highlights the need for utopianism to challenge the legacy of colonization. Finally, Jemisin's story is a critical homage to \"Omelas.\" Jemisin shares the decolonial impetus of Gorodischer's fiction, and she constructs Um-Helat on an explicitly antiracist foundation. Instead of walking away, her characters actively fight the creeping threat of intolerance while working toward that better place.","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":"43875144","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.33.1.0076
F. Shor
abstract:Dystopian settings are often dominated by fear and despair. As instruments and symbols of fear, guns, especially deployed in gendered ways, reinforce the dystopian setting. This article explores how guns and gender roles are represented in three dystopian novels (The Turner Diaries, The Road, and Parable of the Sower) and three dystopian films (Zardoz, The Terminator, and The Road). Examining how phallocentric aggression and toxic masculinity shape how guns are wielded by a number of characters in several of these films and novels, the article also suggests how critical dystopias offer insights into the conditions that create dystopia and impede alternative and better futures. By providing interpretive interventions into the constructions of the specific dystopian settings and the deployment of guns, the article offers new insights into the interface between gender, guns, and dystopia.
{"title":"Guns and Gender Roles in Dystopian Settings","authors":"F. Shor","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.33.1.0076","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.33.1.0076","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:Dystopian settings are often dominated by fear and despair. As instruments and symbols of fear, guns, especially deployed in gendered ways, reinforce the dystopian setting. This article explores how guns and gender roles are represented in three dystopian novels (The Turner Diaries, The Road, and Parable of the Sower) and three dystopian films (Zardoz, The Terminator, and The Road). Examining how phallocentric aggression and toxic masculinity shape how guns are wielded by a number of characters in several of these films and novels, the article also suggests how critical dystopias offer insights into the conditions that create dystopia and impede alternative and better futures. By providing interpretive interventions into the constructions of the specific dystopian settings and the deployment of guns, the article offers new insights into the interface between gender, guns, and dystopia.","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":"45717543","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.33.1.0127
John M. Robison
abstract:Advocates of Bitcoin and Modern Monetary Theory present their ideas as radical utopian alternatives to the neoliberal dominant, but these claims neglect the utopian strain in neoliberal monetary theory itself. This strain manifests in that theory's faith in the capacity of markets to perfect human society. Bitcoin and Modern Monetary Theory express this same faith. After a brief survey of the older, more radical money utopias of More and Proudhon, this article traces the origins of Bitcoin and MMT in the more conventional monetary theories of metallism and chartalism and then analyzes the utopian discourse of both movements, revealing that Bitcoin sees state intervention as the only obstacle to properly functioning markets, while MMT blames disfunction on an inadequate mobilization of labor, proposing state intervention as the remedy. In both cases, their policies only seek to enable the utopian potential of the market, falling in line with neoliberal orthodoxy. The conclusion offers some speculation about what the emergence of these two theories might tell us about the future of neoliberalism.
{"title":"The Neoliberal Utopianism of Bitcoin and Modern Monetary Theory","authors":"John M. Robison","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.33.1.0127","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.33.1.0127","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:Advocates of Bitcoin and Modern Monetary Theory present their ideas as radical utopian alternatives to the neoliberal dominant, but these claims neglect the utopian strain in neoliberal monetary theory itself. This strain manifests in that theory's faith in the capacity of markets to perfect human society. Bitcoin and Modern Monetary Theory express this same faith. After a brief survey of the older, more radical money utopias of More and Proudhon, this article traces the origins of Bitcoin and MMT in the more conventional monetary theories of metallism and chartalism and then analyzes the utopian discourse of both movements, revealing that Bitcoin sees state intervention as the only obstacle to properly functioning markets, while MMT blames disfunction on an inadequate mobilization of labor, proposing state intervention as the remedy. In both cases, their policies only seek to enable the utopian potential of the market, falling in line with neoliberal orthodoxy. The conclusion offers some speculation about what the emergence of these two theories might tell us about the future of neoliberalism.","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":"48655464","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.33.1.0144
Mikayla Novak
abstract:This article considers the relationship between modern classical liberalism and utopian theory. The main question we address is: How have key liberal theorists over the past century received utopian visions of the economy, politics, and society? The development of liberalism is commonly associated with strident anti-utopianism, a perception contraindicated by more recent developments in political economy and philosophy. Accommodative liberal engagements with utopia are evident within philosophical discussions addressing the significance of group diversity within free societies, and of maintaining social accord among peoples with divergent beliefs, practices, and other modes of living. This development aligns with a revitalized liberal political economy emphasis upon experimentation and process, which appears congruent with similar tendencies in utopian theory over recent decades. Even liberal critics of utopia, such as Friedrich Hayek, described their own grounded visions of either utopian society, or of piecemeal reforms in a utopian direction. In this article it is argued feasible intellectual opportunities do exist to reconcile liberal theory and utopian conceptions.
{"title":"Conceptions of Utopia in Modern Liberal Thought: Is There a Liberal Utopia?","authors":"Mikayla Novak","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.33.1.0144","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.33.1.0144","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:This article considers the relationship between modern classical liberalism and utopian theory. The main question we address is: How have key liberal theorists over the past century received utopian visions of the economy, politics, and society? The development of liberalism is commonly associated with strident anti-utopianism, a perception contraindicated by more recent developments in political economy and philosophy. Accommodative liberal engagements with utopia are evident within philosophical discussions addressing the significance of group diversity within free societies, and of maintaining social accord among peoples with divergent beliefs, practices, and other modes of living. This development aligns with a revitalized liberal political economy emphasis upon experimentation and process, which appears congruent with similar tendencies in utopian theory over recent decades. Even liberal critics of utopia, such as Friedrich Hayek, described their own grounded visions of either utopian society, or of piecemeal reforms in a utopian direction. In this article it is argued feasible intellectual opportunities do exist to reconcile liberal theory and utopian conceptions.","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":"45929390","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.33.1.0090
Mathias Thaler
abstract:This article contributes to a better understanding of dystopia's practical aims by offering a critical defense of what Gregory Claeys calls the "Atwood Principle." Derived from the writings of Canadian author Margaret Atwood, it establishes a yardstick for separating speculative fiction from science fiction. I argue that, rather than elevating it to the status of a genre definer, the Atwood Principle should be vindicated in terms of a heuristic device for contextually identifying the central mechanism underpinning dystopias: warning through extrapolation. The real challenge, then, is how to make sense of the complex functioning of extrapolation. Instead of viewing it in mechanistic terms, my suggestion is to envisage extrapolation as a dynamic process involving both realism and estrangement. I illustrate this through a contrast between two kinds of stories about the current climate emergency: cautionary and post-cautionary tales of the Anthropocene.
{"title":"Warning through Extrapolation: On the Practical Aims of Dystopia","authors":"Mathias Thaler","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.33.1.0090","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.33.1.0090","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:This article contributes to a better understanding of dystopia's practical aims by offering a critical defense of what Gregory Claeys calls the \"Atwood Principle.\" Derived from the writings of Canadian author Margaret Atwood, it establishes a yardstick for separating speculative fiction from science fiction. I argue that, rather than elevating it to the status of a genre definer, the Atwood Principle should be vindicated in terms of a heuristic device for contextually identifying the central mechanism underpinning dystopias: warning through extrapolation. The real challenge, then, is how to make sense of the complex functioning of extrapolation. Instead of viewing it in mechanistic terms, my suggestion is to envisage extrapolation as a dynamic process involving both realism and estrangement. I illustrate this through a contrast between two kinds of stories about the current climate emergency: cautionary and post-cautionary tales of the Anthropocene.","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":"46063440","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.33.1.0168
Diana Q. Palardy
{"title":"Becoming Utopian: The Culture and Politics of Radical Transformation","authors":"Diana Q. Palardy","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.33.1.0168","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.33.1.0168","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":"47737505","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.33.1.0054
Nathan N. Soch, Michael Hogan, O. Harney, M. Hanlon, Catherine Brady, Liam McGrattan
abstract:Human-technology interactions are omnipresent in daily life, a reality that must be faced to enact positive change without uprooting the technological systems that have come to define us. The present study develops a collective intelligence model for human-technology interaction (HTI) design that aims to promote peace, prosperity, and happiness through design intentionality informed by utopian targets of radical improvement in society. Participants generated ideas, clarified and consolidated them, and then developed an interpretive structure model of the most important affordances identified during the idea generation phase. Coupled with a two-pass thematic analysis of the original idea set, what emerged is a model that is informed by stakeholder users of the technologies of tomorrow. Affordance themes centered on the importance of promoting world peace through technological means, identifying and rectifying material and financial inequalities, addressing negative well-being effects in current technologies, and increasing global collaboration and eventual expansion into the cosmos.
{"title":"Developing a Utopian Model of Human-Technology Interaction: Collective Intelligence Applications in Support of Future Well-Being","authors":"Nathan N. Soch, Michael Hogan, O. Harney, M. Hanlon, Catherine Brady, Liam McGrattan","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.33.1.0054","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.33.1.0054","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:Human-technology interactions are omnipresent in daily life, a reality that must be faced to enact positive change without uprooting the technological systems that have come to define us. The present study develops a collective intelligence model for human-technology interaction (HTI) design that aims to promote peace, prosperity, and happiness through design intentionality informed by utopian targets of radical improvement in society. Participants generated ideas, clarified and consolidated them, and then developed an interpretive structure model of the most important affordances identified during the idea generation phase. Coupled with a two-pass thematic analysis of the original idea set, what emerged is a model that is informed by stakeholder users of the technologies of tomorrow. Affordance themes centered on the importance of promoting world peace through technological means, identifying and rectifying material and financial inequalities, addressing negative well-being effects in current technologies, and increasing global collaboration and eventual expansion into the cosmos.","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":"49496502","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.33.1.0001
A. Friberg
This article examines the temporal rhetoric of Extinction Rebellion and Fridays For Future to discuss how the new generation of climate movement organizations offers ideas of an open future that can be acted upon. Research has shown how climate organizations create economic and social disruptions. However, as the article shows, they also create temporal disruptions. Taking theoretical inspiration from critical utopian studies, the article states that the climate activists should be understood as utilizing a disruptive utopian method that aims to disrupt the present and thereby open the future. The method relies on utopias that are relational and open, not static or absolute. Hence, the utopianism employed by these groups is not about closure and perfection, but rather about openness and offering alternatives.
{"title":"Disrupting the Present and Opening the Future","authors":"A. Friberg","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.33.1.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.33.1.0001","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article examines the temporal rhetoric of Extinction Rebellion and Fridays For Future to discuss how the new generation of climate movement organizations offers ideas of an open future that can be acted upon. Research has shown how climate organizations create economic and social disruptions. However, as the article shows, they also create temporal disruptions. Taking theoretical inspiration from critical utopian studies, the article states that the climate activists should be understood as utilizing a disruptive utopian method that aims to disrupt the present and thereby open the future. The method relies on utopias that are relational and open, not static or absolute. Hence, the utopianism employed by these groups is not about closure and perfection, but rather about openness and offering alternatives.","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":"41742044","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.33.1.0183
Julie A. Fiorelli
{"title":"The Racial Horizon of Utopia: Unthinking the Future of Race in Late Twentieth-Century American Utopian Novels by Edward K. Chan (review)","authors":"Julie A. Fiorelli","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.33.1.0183","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.33.1.0183","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":"45029895","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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