Utopian StudiesPub Date : 2023-11-01DOI: 10.5325/utopianstudies.34.3.0418
P. Sinnema
{"title":"Archibald Marshall’s “Motley Mixture of Crying Contradictions”: Upsidonia as Utopian Farce","authors":"P. Sinnema","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.34.3.0418","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.34.3.0418","url":null,"abstract":"Karl Marx’s acerbic observation in the opening lines of The Eighteenth Brumaire that “all facts and personages of great importance in world history occur the first time as tragedy, the second as farce” may be profitably applied to a reconsideration of literary farce sui generis, a genre represented in this article by a long-neglected work of utopian fiction, Archibald Marshall’s Upsidonia (1915). Although Upsidonia’s current disregard is arguably undeserved, the article’s chief interest is not to reclaim the novel on aesthetic grounds but to illuminate the mechanics of what Marx would call its “serious buffoonery.” In its persistent reversal of capitalist principles and relations, Upsidonia naturally invites readers to revisit Marx, whose mordant gambit may serve as a key to Marshall’s own farcical plot and praxis, rooted in return and repetition, the essential maneuvers of farce itself.","PeriodicalId":44751,"journal":{"name":"Utopian Studies","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139301334","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}
Utopian StudiesPub Date : 2023-11-01DOI: 10.5325/utopianstudies.34.3.0595
Mark Schmitt
{"title":"Utopia and the Contemporary British Novel","authors":"Mark Schmitt","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.34.3.0595","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.34.3.0595","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44751,"journal":{"name":"Utopian Studies","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139302470","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}
Utopian StudiesPub Date : 2023-11-01DOI: 10.5325/utopianstudies.34.3.0399
David W. Miller
{"title":"The Social Prison: Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed as Postanarchist Critical Utopia","authors":"David W. Miller","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.34.3.0399","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.34.3.0399","url":null,"abstract":"Ursula K. Le Guin’s classic work of anarchist literature, The Dispossessed (1974), is preoccupied with the issue of imprisonment. This is hardly surprising given anarchism’s longstanding critical engagement with the prison as state apparatus. For classical anarchists, the prison represents one of the most vile and visible examples of state repression. However, while the abolition of prisons constitutes one of the fundamental goals of anarchism, the alternatives put forth by classical anarchist thinkers risk perpetuating the underlying power relations of carceral justice by encouraging social shaming and the policing of norms. The anarchist society of The Dispossessed uses these techniques to discourage the accumulation of power in order to create an egalitarian society. Unfortunately, these same techniques encourage a conformity that hinders other anarchist values, such as creativity and individual self-determination. In essence, the anarchist society depicted in the novel replaces the literal prison with a different form of imprisonment—the social prison, which continues the repressive function of the state through different means. By creating an “ambiguous” anarchist utopia, Le Guin anticipates the critiques of classical anarchism formulated by poststructural and postmodern anarchist theorists. These critiques are most evident in the theme of imprisonment that threads throughout the novel.","PeriodicalId":44751,"journal":{"name":"Utopian Studies","volume":"190 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139295339","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}
Utopian StudiesPub Date : 2023-07-01DOI: 10.5325/utopianstudies.34.2.0234
Georgie Newson
{"title":"An Archival Paradise: John Wilkins’s Essay Towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language and Early Modern Info-Utopianism","authors":"Georgie Newson","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.34.2.0234","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.34.2.0234","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:Bishop John Wilkins’s “universal philosophical language,” set out in his Essay Towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language (1668), has often been described—and indeed dismissed—as a “utopian” project. However, despite the charge of utopianism being applied to Wilkins’s work by theorists as eminent as Foucault, Lacan, and Umberto Eco, no effort has been made to read the Essay as a legitimately utopian text: a text that may be positioned alongside the rich utopian literary-critical tradition to mutually illuminating effect. This article argues that the Essay displays a tendency that the author terms “info-utopianism,” and that this tendency can be located in a number of other Early Modern utopian works. The article then discusses the contextual influences behind the emergence of Early Modern infoutopianism, as well as its implications for contemporary utopian theory.","PeriodicalId":44751,"journal":{"name":"Utopian Studies","volume":"23 1","pages":"234 - 256"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139364544","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}
Utopian StudiesPub Date : 2023-07-01DOI: 10.5325/utopianstudies.34.2.0368
Manuel Sousa Oliveira, Ilenia Vittoria Casmiri, Fabiola Onofrio, Tânia Cerqueira, Francisca Teixeira, Florian Wagner
{"title":"Green Utopia Now! A Transdisciplinary Symposium on How to Deal with the Climate Crisis: November 30, 2022, University of Ferrara, Italy","authors":"Manuel Sousa Oliveira, Ilenia Vittoria Casmiri, Fabiola Onofrio, Tânia Cerqueira, Francisca Teixeira, Florian Wagner","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.34.2.0368","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.34.2.0368","url":null,"abstract":"of","PeriodicalId":44751,"journal":{"name":"Utopian Studies","volume":"4 1","pages":"368 - 377"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139365269","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}