Political Uses of Utopia

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Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231544316
Total Pages : 403 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (315 download)

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Book Synopsis Political Uses of Utopia by : S. D. Chrostowska

Download or read book Political Uses of Utopia written by S. D. Chrostowska and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-21 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Utopia has long been banished from political theory, framed as an impossible—and possibly dangerous—political ideal, a flawed social blueprint, or a thought experiment without any practical import. Even the "realistic utopias" of liberal theory strike many as wishful thinking. Can politics think utopia otherwise? Can utopian thinking contribute to the renewal of politics? In Political Uses of Utopia, an international cast of leading and emerging theorists agree that the uses of utopia for politics are multiple and nuanced and lie somewhere between—or, better yet, beyond—the mainstream caution against it and the conviction that another, better world ought to be possible. Representing a range of perspectives on the grand tradition of Western utopianism, which extends back half a millennium and perhaps as far as Plato, these essays are united in their interest in the relevance of utopianism to specific historical and contemporary political contexts. Featuring contributions from Miguel Abensour, Étienne Balibar, Raymond Geuss, and Jacques Rancière, among others, Political Uses of Utopia reopens the question of whether and how utopianism can inform political thinking and action today.

The New Utopian Politics of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed

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Publisher : Lexington Books
ISBN 13 : 0739158201
Total Pages : 353 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (391 download)

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Book Synopsis The New Utopian Politics of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed by : Laurence Davis

Download or read book The New Utopian Politics of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed written by Laurence Davis and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2005-11-22 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Dispossessed has been described by political thinker Andre Gorz as 'The most striking description I know of the seductions—and snares—of self-managed communist or, in other words, anarchist society.' To date, however, the radical social, cultural, and political ramifications of Le Guin's multiple award-winning novel remain woefully under explored. Editors Laurence Davis and Peter Stillman right this state of affairs in the first ever collection of original essays devoted to Le Guin's novel. Among the topics covered in this wide-ranging, international and interdisciplinary collection are the anarchist, ecological, post-consumerist, temporal, revolutionary, and open-ended utopian politics of The Dispossessed. The book concludes with an essay by Le Guin written specially for this volume, in which she reassesses the novel in light of the development of her own thinking over the past 30 years.

Utopian Horizons

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Publisher : Central European University Press
ISBN 13 : 9633862434
Total Pages : 265 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (338 download)

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Book Synopsis Utopian Horizons by : Zsolt Cziganyik

Download or read book Utopian Horizons written by Zsolt Cziganyik and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-30 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 500th anniversary of Thomas More’s Utopia has directed attention toward the importance of utopianism. This book investigates the possibilities of cooperation between the humanities and the social sciences in the analysis of 20th century and contemporary utopian phenomena. The papers deal with major problems of interpreting utopias, the relationship of utopia and ideology, and the highly problematic issue as to whether utopia necessarily leads to dystopia. Besides reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of contemporary utopian investigations, the eleven essays effectively represent the constructive attitudes of utopian thought, a feature that not only defines late 20th- and 21st-century utopianism, but is one of the primary reasons behind the rising importance of the topic. The volume’s originality and value lies not only in the innovative theoretical approaches proposed, but also in the practical application of the concept of utopia to a variety of phenomena which have been neglected in the utopian studies paradigm, especially to the rarely discussed Central European texts and ideologies.

The New Utopian Politics of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed

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Author :
Publisher : Lexington Books
ISBN 13 : 9780739110867
Total Pages : 360 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (18 download)

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Book Synopsis The New Utopian Politics of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed by : Laurence Davis

Download or read book The New Utopian Politics of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed written by Laurence Davis and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2005 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Description of the seductions - and snares - of self-managed communist or, in other words, anarchist society. This title, an edited collection of original essays on "Le Guin's The Dispossessed", represents an exploration of the political ramifications of this work by a wide interdisciplinary swath of scholars from around the world.

Chicanx Utopias

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Publisher : University of Texas Press
ISBN 13 : 1477324488
Total Pages : 239 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (773 download)

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Book Synopsis Chicanx Utopias by : Luis Alvarez

Download or read book Chicanx Utopias written by Luis Alvarez and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2022-02-22 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amid the rise of neoliberalism, globalization, and movements for civil rights and global justice in the post–World War II era, Chicanxs in film, music, television, and art weaponized culture to combat often oppressive economic and political conditions. They envisioned utopias that, even if never fully realized, reimagined the world and linked seemingly disparate people and places. In the latter half of the twentieth century, Chicanx popular culture forged a politics of the possible and gave rise to utopian dreams that sprang from everyday experiences. In Chicanx Utopias, Luis Alvarez offers a broad study of these utopian visions from the 1950s to the 2000s. Probing the film Salt of the Earth, brown-eyed soul music, sitcoms, poster art, and borderlands reggae music, he examines how Chicanx pop culture, capable of both liberation and exploitation, fostered interracial and transnational identities, engaged social movements, and produced varied utopian visions with divergent possibilities and limits. Grounded in the theoretical frameworks of Walter Benjamin, Stuart Hall, and the Zapatista movement, this book reveals how Chicanxs articulated pop cultural utopias to make sense of, challenge, and improve the worlds they inhabited.

The Politics of Utopia

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Author :
Publisher : Peter Lang
ISBN 13 : 9783039110803
Total Pages : 348 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (18 download)

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Book Synopsis The Politics of Utopia by : Barbara Goodwin

Download or read book The Politics of Utopia written by Barbara Goodwin and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2009 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides both an introduction to utopianism and a general perspective on radical political thought. Vigorously disputing the widespread conviction that utopianism is a fantasy with no relevance to modern political life and thought, the authors argue that it is a concept whose special virtue lies in its capacity to transcend the limitations of present circumstances, to inspire alternative thinking and to open up new directions for political action. This book develops an approach which relates social causes to political theory and practice. The first part discusses utopianism as a form of political theory with unique characteristics and the ability to transcend the present. The second part considers utopianism as an expression of fundamental social impulses and as an ingredient of modern political movements. The third part offers a defence of utopianism as both theory and practice, and argues for its use to counteract the pragmatism and narrow empiricism which often passes for political «realism» in modern societies. This reissue of a popular and well-received landmark text contains a new preface.

Utopian Politics

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1136580727
Total Pages : 219 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (365 download)

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Book Synopsis Utopian Politics by : Rhiannon Firth

Download or read book Utopian Politics written by Rhiannon Firth and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-03-12 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the context of global problems such as the economic downturn, escalating inequality, terrorism, resource depletion and climate change, cynicism prevails in contemporary politics, which need not be the case. Utopian Politics confronts a world intensely aware of the problems that we face and sadly lacking in solutions, positing a utopian articulation of citizenship focused on community participation at a grassroots level. By re-examining central concepts and thinkers in political theory, this book re-casts the concepts of utopia and citizenship both as part of the classical philosophical tradition and simultaneously as part of the cutting edge of radical alternatives. This book includes never-before published ethnographic research, interviews and photographs from a range of autonomous UK communities, to show how the boundaries of politics and citizenship can be questioned and proposes an innovative methodology inspired by classical and post-structural anarchism. By considering ideas and practices that are generally considered to be marginal to mainstream political theory and practice, the book encourages readers to think about longstanding and central political debates in an entirely new, and creative way. Utopian Politics will be of interest to students and scholars of political theory, ethics and citizenship.

Sustainable Utopias

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Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674249143
Total Pages : 369 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (742 download)

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Book Synopsis Sustainable Utopias by : Jennifer L. Allen

Download or read book Sustainable Utopias written by Jennifer L. Allen and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2022-03-08 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To reclaim a sense of hope for the future, German activists in the late twentieth century engaged ordinary citizens in innovative projects that resisted alienation and disenfranchisement. By most accounts, the twentieth century was not kind to utopian thought. The violence of two world wars, Cold War anxieties, and a widespread sense of crisis after the 1973 global oil shock appeared to doom dreams of a better world. The eventual victory of capitalism and, seemingly, liberal democracy relieved some fears but exchanged them for complacency and cynicism. Not, however, in West Germany. Jennifer Allen showcases grassroots activism of the 1980s and 1990s that envisioned a radically different society based on community-centered politicsÑa society in which the democratization of culture and power ameliorated alienation and resisted the impotence of end-of-history narratives. BerlinÕs History Workshop liberated research from university confines by providing opportunities for ordinary people to write and debate the story of the nation. The Green Party made the politics of direct democracy central to its program. Artists changed the way people viewed and acted in public spaces by installing objects in unexpected environments, including the Stolpersteine: paving stones, embedded in residential sidewalks, bearing the names of Nazi victims. These activists went beyond just trafficking in ideas. They forged new infrastructures, spaces, and behaviors that gave everyday people real agency in their communities. Undergirding this activism was the environmentalist concept of sustainability, which demanded that any alternative to existing society be both enduring and adaptable. A rigorous but inspiring tale of hope in action, Sustainable Utopias makes the case that it is still worth believing in human creativity and the labor of citizenship.

Bastards of Utopia

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Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 025301588X
Total Pages : 419 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (53 download)

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Book Synopsis Bastards of Utopia by : Maple Razsa

Download or read book Bastards of Utopia written by Maple Razsa and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2015-04-06 with total page 419 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bastards of Utopia, the companion to a feature documentary film of the same name, explores the experiences and political imagination of young radical activists in the former Yugoslavia, participants in what they call alterglobalization or "globalization from below." Ethnographer Maple Razsa follows individual activists from the transnational protests against globalization of the early 2000s through the Occupy encampments. His portrayal of activism is both empathetic and unflinching—an engaged, elegant meditation on the struggle to re-imagine leftist politics and the power of a country's youth. More information on the film can be found at www.der.org/films/bastards-of-utopia.html.

Political Theory, Science Fiction, and Utopian Literature

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Publisher : Lexington Books
ISBN 13 : 0739144871
Total Pages : 332 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (391 download)

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Book Synopsis Political Theory, Science Fiction, and Utopian Literature by : Tony Burns

Download or read book Political Theory, Science Fiction, and Utopian Literature written by Tony Burns and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2010-02-19 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed is of interest to political theorists partly because of its association with anarchism and partly because it is thought to represent a turning point in the history of utopian/dystopian political thought and literature and of science fiction. Published in 1974, it marked a revival of utopianism after decades of dystopian writing. According to this widely accepted view The Dispossessed represents a new kind of literary utopia, which Tom Moylan calls a 'critical utopia.' The present work challenges this reading of The Dispossessed and its place in the histories of utopian/dystopian literature and science fiction. It explores the difference between traditional literary utopia and novels and suggests that The Dispossessed is not a literary utopia but a novel about utopianism in politics. Le Guin's concerns have more to do with those of the novelists of the 19th century writing in the tradition of European Realism than they do with the science fiction or utopian literature. It also claims that her theory of the novel has an affinity with the ancient Greek tragedy. This implies that there is a conservatism in Le Guin's work as a creative writer, or as a novelist, which fits uneasily with her personal commitment to anarchism.

Utopia in the Age of Survival

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781503629998
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (299 download)

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Book Synopsis Utopia in the Age of Survival by : S. D. Chrostowska

Download or read book Utopia in the Age of Survival written by S. D. Chrostowska and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A pathbreaking exploration of the fate of utopia in our troubled times, this book shows how the historically intertwined endeavors of utopia and critique might be leveraged in response to humanity's looming existential challenges. Utopia in the Age of Survival makes the case that critical social theory needs to reinstate utopia as a speculative myth. At the same time the left must reassume utopia as an action-guiding hypothesis--that is, as something still possible. S. D. Chrostowska looks to the vibrant, visionary mid-century resurgence of embodied utopian longings and projections in Surrealism, the Situationist International, and critical theorists writing in their wake, reconstructing utopia's link to survival through to the earliest, most radical phase of the French environmental movement. Survival emerges as the organizing concept for a variety of democratic political forms that center the corporeality of desire in social movements contesting the expanding management of life by state institutions across the globe. Vigilant and timely, balancing fine-tuned analysis with broad historical overview to map the utopian impulse across contemporary cultural and political life, Chrostowska issues an urgent report on the vitality of utopia.

After Utopia

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Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691200866
Total Pages : 330 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (912 download)

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Book Synopsis After Utopia by : Judith N. Shklar

Download or read book After Utopia written by Judith N. Shklar and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A political philosophy classic from one of the foremost political thinkers of the twentieth century After Utopia was Judith Shklar’s first book, a harbinger of her renowned career in political philosophy. Throughout the many changes in political thought during the last half century, this important work has withstood the test of time. In After Utopia, Shklar explores the decline of political philosophy, from Enlightenment optimism to modern cultural despair, and she offers a critical, creative analysis of this downward trend. She looks at Romantic and Christian social thought, and she shows that while the present political fatalism may be unavoidable, the prophets of despair have failed to explain the world they so dislike, leaving the possibility of a new and vigorous political philosophy. With a foreword by Samuel Moyn, examining After Utopia’s continued relevance, this current edition introduces a remarkable synthesis of ideas to a new generation of readers.

Utopian Bodies and the Politics of Transgression

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134610513
Total Pages : 180 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (346 download)

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Book Synopsis Utopian Bodies and the Politics of Transgression by : Lucy Sargisson

Download or read book Utopian Bodies and the Politics of Transgression written by Lucy Sargisson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-01-22 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What do we want? What do we believe to be wrong with the world? How can we best change it? How should we live? Given the world as it is, how can we best achieve our dreams and desires? Utopian Bodies is, quite simply, a new approach to thinking about theory. Using the dominant themes of green and feminist politics, this fascinating and original text creates a new notion of utopian thought and life - "transgressive utopianism". This new concept is not a blueprint for an ideal polity; instead it demonstrates an approach to the world that is both idealistic and pragmatic, focussing on bodies of thought in relation to bodies of people: communities. Also spanning philosophy, political theory and deconstruction, this book is especially relevant today as the millennium marks a time of resurgence in utopian studies

Literature and Utopian Politics in Seventeenth-Century England

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Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1139432869
Total Pages : 270 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (394 download)

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Book Synopsis Literature and Utopian Politics in Seventeenth-Century England by : Robert Appelbaum

Download or read book Literature and Utopian Politics in Seventeenth-Century England written by Robert Appelbaum and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-04-04 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hundreds of writers in the English-speaking world of the seventeenth-century imagined alternative ideal societies. Sometimes they did so by exploring fanciful territories, such as the world in the moon or the nations of the Antipodes; but sometimes they composed serious disquisitions about the here and now, proposing how England or its nascent colonies could be conceived of as an 'Oceana,' or a New Jerusalem. This book provides a comprehensive view of the operations of the utopian imagination in literature from 1603 to the 1660s. Appealing to social theorists, literary critics, and political and cultural historians, this volume revises prevailing notions of the languages of hope and social dreaming in the making of British modernity during a century of political and intellectual upheaval.

Media Hoaxing

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Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1498527361
Total Pages : 193 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (985 download)

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Book Synopsis Media Hoaxing by : Ian Reilly

Download or read book Media Hoaxing written by Ian Reilly and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-08-24 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the history, theory, practice, politics, and efficacy of hoaxing through an in-depth study of the Yes Men, one of the most important media activist groups to have emerged in the past two decades. Better known as humorous deceptions or politically motivated deceptive actions, media hoaxes are increasingly being used by activists seeking to change the world by drawing attention to abuses of power by corporations and governments. In this regard, the Yes Men are the unrivaled masters of the media hoax. By blending cutting political satire, outlandish humor, and sobering social criticism, they expose the wrongdoings of the world’s most powerful institutions to make them more accountable, transparent, and responsible to the public. These interventions serve as compelling case studies from which to explore two defining tensions underpinning all activist endeavors—failure and success. In situating the Yes Men’s work in relation to failure and success, discussions surrounding the defining realities of activist struggle come to the fore, creating room for greater emphasis on cycles of activist innovation, adaptation, and renewal. Thus, this book sheds light on why media hoaxing has emerged as a significant 21st century activist practice and makes a case for the significance of the media hoax as a positive force in the articulation of utopian politics.

The Tempest and New World-Utopian Politics

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Author :
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 1137021802
Total Pages : 259 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (37 download)

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Book Synopsis The Tempest and New World-Utopian Politics by : F. Brevik

Download or read book The Tempest and New World-Utopian Politics written by F. Brevik and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-12-17 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study on New World-utopian politics in The Tempest traces paradigm shifts in literary criticism over the past six decades that have all but reinscribed the text into a political document. This book challenges the view that the play has a dominant New World dimension and demonstrates through close textual readings how an unstable setting at the same time enables and effaces discursively over-invested New World interpretations. Almost no critical attention has been paid to the play's vacuum of power, and this work interprets pastoral, utopian, and 'American' tensions in light of the play's forever-ambiguous setting as well as through a 'presentist' post-1989 lens, an oft-neglected historical and political paradigm shift in Shakespeare criticism.

Consuming Utopia

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000435202
Total Pages : 178 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (4 download)

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Book Synopsis Consuming Utopia by : John Storey

Download or read book Consuming Utopia written by John Storey and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-09-15 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Consuming Utopia builds on critical insights into consumption and utopianism developed in two previous books by the author to elaborate what it means to read utopian fiction (including dystopian and anti-utopian) from the critical perspective of cultural studies. With a critical focus on social practices of reading rather than on the text itself, John Storey advances a timely and relevant contribution to existing debates on utopian fiction, offering new insights into how we might understand the politics of utopian fiction. Finding readership and readers indispensable to the act of producing politics beyond the text, Storey argues that if utopian fiction has a ‘politics’, it is determined by those who, in actuality, pick up books and act on what they read, rather than readers proposed by textuality. By engaging with seminal concepts in cultural studies, this book shows how reading utopian fiction works to make the meaning of such texts material and social, and therefore available for politics. An essential addition to the literature on utopian fiction, this book will be of great interest to scholars and students in the areas of cultural studies, literary studies, comparative literature, cultural politics, utopian studies, and political theory.