Diffusion of the utopias. The academy and the media in times of pandemic

Abstract

At the end of the 20th century, the disappearance of the great utopias occurs. Crises are favorable moments to imagine better worlds. Social scientists and humanists - because of their knowledge of reality and its possibilities for change - are privileged to visualize the Covid-19 crisis as an opportunity for change and transfer the orientation of change to all of society. This is a transcendental translation for the consolidation of utopia in the social imaginary. This work explores the rehabilitation of utopia in the exceptional circumstances of the pandemic's start by academics. Doing this identifies, classifies, and analyzes the specific proposals that these thinkers have published in the press to move towards a happy world. We note that the pandemic has not managed to rehabilitate the utopia and that the community's proposals for change are fragmented. We consider that this fragmentation is a symptom of micro-stories, which implies a shift towards micro-routes. However, medium-range utopias proliferate in which messages appear insistently and, in that sense, may be reflected in the social imaginary