Utopian Studies最新文献

{"title":"Antiutopianism: An Introduction","authors":"Patricia McManus, Darko Suvin","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.34.2.0289","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.34.2.0289","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44751,"journal":{"name":"Utopian Studies","volume":"12 1","pages":"289 - 291"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139365645","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}

{"title":"Utopian Enterprises: Growing Up with Star Trek","authors":"Mark S. Jendrysik","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.34.2.0359","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.34.2.0359","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44751,"journal":{"name":"Utopian Studies","volume":"43 1","pages":"359 - 366"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139365715","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}

{"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}

{"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}

{"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}

{"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}

{"title":"The Virtuous City of the Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ: A Medieval Islamic Reflection on Worldliness and Communal Division","authors":"Mohamad Ghossein","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.34.1.0034","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.34.1.0034","url":null,"abstract":"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.","PeriodicalId":44751,"journal":{"name":"Utopian Studies","volume":"91 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":"135533426","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}

{"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}

{"title":"The Adventures of Telemachus <i>[1699]</i>","authors":"Jean-Michel Racault","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.34.1.0140","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.34.1.0140","url":null,"abstract":"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","PeriodicalId":44751,"journal":{"name":"Utopian Studies","volume":"39 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":"135533419","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}

{"title":"Experimental Utopia: Edward Abramowski’s “Applied Social Science”","authors":"Bartłomiej Adam Błesznowski","doi":"10.5325/utopianstudies.34.1.0080","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.34.1.0080","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to analyze the close relation between social theory (“sociological phenomenalism”) and the political ideology of the Polish thinker Edward Abramowski. Abramowski’s “applied sociology” involved: (1) the sociology of “fraternity,” examining basic forms of socialization; (2) combining social revolution with ethical self-improvement; and (3) the dissemination of “social laboratories” through the development of a network of cooperatives. As “experiments of the will,” the cooperatives allowed Abramowski to combine science, imagination, and ethics in a coherent project of political utopia-building, extending the possible forms of community. Finally, the article shows that in Abramowski’s case, the meaning of utopia as an element embedded in a wide range of political practices derives from his vision of social science. Due to the influence that Abramowski’s thought had on political reality in Poland, the concept of “experimental” utopia entered the vocabulary of modern social sciences in Poland for good.","PeriodicalId":44751,"journal":{"name":"Utopian Studies","volume":"7 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":"135533421","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}