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Günther, Griselda, and Tania Arroyo. "Crisis Civilizatoria y Utopías: El Buen vivir como posibilidad." Revista de Estudos e Pesquisas sobre as Américas 11, no. 1 (2017): 19. http://dx.doi.org/10.21057/repam.v11i1.24935.
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ResumenEste trabajo tiene por objetivo reflexionar sobre tres cuestiones: ¿Qué son la utopía y el pensamiento utópico?, ¿qué función cumplen ante la crisis civilizatoria actual? y ¿qué tan pertinente es pensar hoy en propuestas como la de Buen vivir como utopía? Para ello se expone brevemente cómo se entienden la utopía y el pensamiento utópico, recuperando el trabajo de algunos autores que se consideran, en este caso, claves. El objetivo es encontrar características comunes que se conjugan para construir una noción actual de utopía y de pensamiento utópico. Posteriormente, se desarrolla la idea de necesidad de las utopías ante el momento crítico actual por el cual atraviesa el planeta y la humanidad. Finalmente, concluimos poniendo en diálogo la utopía y la crisis civilizatoria a través de la propuesta emergente del Buen vivir como alternativa al desarrollo y sus potencialidades.Palabras-clave: Utopía, Buen vivir, Crisis Civilizatoria, Pensamiento Utópico, Vivir Bien Crise Civilizacional e Utopias: Boa Vida como uma PossibilidadeResumoEste trabalho tem como objetivo refletir sobre três questões: o que são a utopia e o pensamento utópico? Que papel eles cumprem na atual crise civilizacional? E quão relevante é hoje pensar em propostas como a do Buen vivir como utopia? Para isso, brevemente se expõe como utopia e pensamento utópico são compreendidos, recuperando o trabalho de alguns autores que são considerados, neste caso, essenciais. O objetivo é encontrar características comuns que se conjugam para criar uma noção atual de utopia e de pensamento utópico. Posteriormente, se desenvolve a ideia da necessidade de utopias diante do momento crítico que atravessa o planeta e a humanidade atualmente. Por fim, concluímos, colocando em diálogo a utopia e a crise civilizacional, justamente através da proposta do Buen vivir como uma alternativa ao desenvolvimento e suas potencialidades.Palavras-chave: Utopia, Buen Vivir, Crise Civilizacional, Pensamento Utópico, Vivir Bien The Crisis of Civilization and Utopias: “Buen Vivir” as a PossibilityAbstractThis work aims to reflect three main issues: the meaning of utopia and utopian thinking; the role they play in the current crisis of civilization; and how pertinent is to think today on proposals as Buen vivir (living well) or utopia. In order to feed these discussions, we briefly describe how utopia and utopian thinking are understood by recovering the work of some key authors. Our main objective is to find common characteristics that will allow us to combine and propose an updated notion of utopia and utopian thinking. Subsequently, we elaborate on utopia’s necessity for current world and humanity crisis. Finally, we conclude our discussion by addressing utopia and the civilization crisis through the emerging proposal of Buen vivir as an alternative for development and potentiality.Keywords: Utopia, Utopian Thinking, Buen Vivir, Vivir Bien, Living Well, Crisis of Civilization
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DeCook, Travis. "The charmed circle: identity in Utopia, unethical practices, and Augustine’s two cities." Moreana 59, no. 2 (2022): 208–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/more.2022.0126.
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This article considers Utopia’s unethical practices alongside The City of God’s understanding of the earthly polity’s relationship to eschatology. In Augustine’s view, within the earthly city every person could potentially become a friend of the heavenly city in time, and the existing political situation must always be rendered partial and incomplete against the telos of eternity. These convictions stand in conspicuous contrast with Utopia. The Utopian system is in important ways founded on institutionalized practices which not only exclude non-Utopians (or ex-Utopians), but also habituate them to vice. Examining Utopia alongside The City of God illuminates how this ethical problem in Utopia is not just a matter of individual practices or institutions, but rather derives from a more fundamental metaphysical and theological outlook. Not only is Utopia invested in a Utopian/non-Utopian distinction; more significantly, this distinction has a tacit eschatological role, since Utopian thinking implies that degradation of one’s capacity for virtue decreases one’s potential to be saved.
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Milerius, Nerijus. "UTOPIJOS IR ANTIUTOPIJOS VIZIJOS KINE. FILOSOFINĖS BANALAUS ŽANRO PRIELAIDOS." Problemos 79 (January 1, 2011): 81–89. http://dx.doi.org/10.15388/problemos.2011.0.1325.
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Straipsnyje tęsiami apokalipsės kino tyrinėjimai, pirmą kartą pristatyti praėjusiame „Problemų“ tome (78). Siekiant detalizuoti apokalipsės kino analizę, pasitelkiami nauji – utopijos ir antiutopijos – kinematografiniai aspektai. Apžvelgiamos utopinio diskurso mitologinės ir religinės prielaidos, parodoma, kaip utopinis diskursas išreiškiamas Platono idealios visuomenės projekte. Thomas More’o „Utopija“ apibrėžiama kaip jungiamoji grandis tarp klasikinių filosofinių ir religinių utopinių vizijų ir vėlesnių mokslinių technologinių pasaulio perkonstravimo modelių. Technologinis pasaulio perkonstravimas kaip moderniųjų utopijų pagrindas neišvengiamai susijęs su nekontroliuojamo pasaulio antiutopinėmis vizijomis. Mary Shelley „Frankenšteinas“ apibūdinamas kaip dažnas utopinių modelių fonas. Kaip utopinių ir antiutopinių motyvų sampynos kine pavyzdys analizuojamas Steveno Spielbergo „Dirbtinis intelektas“. Įrodoma, jog postapokaliptinė šio kino kūrinio aplinka konstruojama tam, kad būtų išryškintas pačios kasdienybės utopiškumas.Pagrindiniai žodžiai: kino filosofija, apokalipsės kinas, mokslinė fantastika, utopija, antiutopija.Visions of Utopia and Dystopia in Cinema. The Philosophical Presuppositions of the Banal GenreNerijus Milerius SummaryThe article continues researching the apocalypse film genre. The first results of such research were presented for the first time in the last volume of “Problemos”. In this article, aspects of utopia and dystopia are introduced into the analysis. Firstly, the mythological and religious presuppositions of utopian discourse are overviewed. Secondly, it is shown how utopian discourse is manifested in Plato’s project of ideal society. “Utopia” of Thomas More is considered as the medium between classical visions of utopia and subsequent models of technological transformation of the world.The technological transformation of the world is such basis of modern utopias, which is inevitably tied with the dystopian visions of uncontrollable reality. M. Shelley’s “Frankenstein” appears to be frequent background of utopian models. As the example of interconnection of utopian and dystopian motifs, S. Spielberg’s “The Artificial Intelligence” is presented. It is argued that the post-apocalyptic milieu of this film is constructed with the purpose of revealing the utopian character of the everyday itself.Keywords: film philosophy, apocalypse movie, science fiction, utopia, dystopia.
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Zvi, Ehud Ben. "Reading and Constructing Utopias." Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 42, no. 4 (2013): 463–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0008429813488344.
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This article is meant as an invitation to further the use of the concept of utopia as a heuristic tool among historians of ancient Israel for the purpose of reconstructing the world of ideas of the late Persian period Yehud. To do so, and given that the term “utopia” may be and has been used in different ways, it advances, first, general considerations about an heuristic, pragmatic understanding of “utopia” and “utopian images” that may be particularly helpful for these purposes. Then it advances a number of observations about utopia and utopian images that were evoked when the literati of the late Yehud read and reread their authoritative corpus of texts. These observations deal, among others, with matters of exploration and certainty in the relevant community, of hope, of restoration and restorative utopias; they deal with issues of temporality as past, present and future utopias were construed and with the existence of multiple memories of utopias and multiple utopias. They address the issue that utopianizing tendencies led to memorable vignettes but not to memorable road maps, they do not fail to mention matters of utopia and power, and they conclude with issues for further discussion. On the whole, this article illustrates how “utopia”-informed approaches may shed light on the intellectual discourse of this community, while at the same time noting crucial differences between utopias and utopianizing tendencies both now and then that must be taken into consideration.
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Fomenko, Anastasiya P. "Utopia in search of the subject, the subject in search of utopia." Vestnik Tomskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, no. 478 (2022): 58–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.17223/15617793/478/7.
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The central concept of this article is the idea of utopia as an optimistic image of a societal order achievable in the distant future. Tracing the process of gradual decline in the emergence of new positive utopias through examples of literary dystopias over the last century, the author proceeds to discuss the topic of the end of utopia. The idea is that, despite its long existence, it is only recently that the absence of new models for a happy future becomes critical, that utopia begins to be recognized as a problem. In this regard, the author proposes to temporarily shift researchers' attention from the already fairly well developed matters of the characteristic features, signs, and functions of utopias of past centuries to factors contributing to the formation of social utopias in culture. Most theorists point to active transformational processes in societal structures and relationships as a factor stimulating the emergence of new utopian ideas, which the author admits to being true, but insufficient. An equally important factor is the obligatory presence of a certain subject of utopia. At closer examination, it seems that the status of the subject of utopia in the contemporary world is largely problematic for many reasons, unlike the subject of classical utopias of the modern era. Firstly, the idea that any utopian project could be brought to fruition raises serious concerns. Secondly, the tendency to perceive utopia as a naive project significantly reduces the degree of its possible influence on the way of thinking and the direction of social change. Thirdly, the lack of clarity about the subject's qualities required to create utopias hinders active creativity regarding new utopian projects. This, in turn, is directly related to the ongoing unresolved problem of the “death” of the subject, brought forth by postmodern philosophers. Against this background, there is a notable inconsistency of contemporary attitudes, which are focused, on the one hand, on the debunking of the subject as an exclusively rational being, and, on the other, on the rationalization of utopian impulses. In conclusion, the author puts forward a thesis about the need to regard the absence of utopia and the absence of a subject as causally interrelated situations. Finally, an idea is proposed about the priority of solving the problem of the subject in comparison with the problem of the end of utopia, or, in other words, about the impossibility of starting the process of forming new utopias until there is clarity about the figure of the new subject and the image of the new person.
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Zuolo, Federico. "Utopia and Ideal Theory." Theoria 72, no. 182 (2025): 1–26. https://doi.org/10.3167/th.2025.7218201.
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Abstract In political theory, utopia is traditionally understood as representing a beautiful but impossible state of affairs. By contrast, the majority of scholarly works in utopian studies understand utopia not as a blueprint for a perfect society but as an indirect critique of the contemporary status quo. The aim of this article is to propose a distinction between utopias and ideal theories. To do so, the article adopts a working definition of utopias that emphasises the formal characters of utopian works (detailed narrative), and compares utopias with ideal theories, which are abstract in kind. After articulating this distinction through some paradigmatic examples (Plato, More, Rawls), the article argues that a better understanding of this difference may help us improve the debate. The article also argues that ideal theories, unlike utopias, are less tainted by the objection that ideals are practically irrelevant.
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Höchsmann, Hyun. ""Comme l'esperance est violante". Hope and Utopia in Benjamin, Bloch and Adorno." P.O.I. - Points of Interest 11, no. 2/2022 (2022): 34–52. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10961154.
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Benjamin’s thinking on hope and utopia permeates his philosophical endeavours, from his earliest writings (<em>Zwei Gedichte von Friedrich Hölderlin: “Dichtermut”–“Blödigkeit”</em>, <em>Theologisch-politisches Fragment</em>, and <em>Goethes Wahlverwandtschaften</em>) to <em>Über den Begriff der Geschichte</em>. The fortitude of Bloch’s encyclopaedic work on utopia and hope, sustained in <em>Geist der Utopie</em> and <em>Das Prinzip Hoffnung</em> has been applauded by Benjamin. Adorno, who stated that everything he ever wrote was influenced by <em>Geist der Utopie</em>, presents an illuminating analysis of «the adventure story of the journey to utopia, whose radiant image Bloch would like to recapture». Bloch’s exploration of diverse historical conceptions of utopia from Thomas More to Marx has prompted Adorno to observe that Bloch has «unrolled a whole series of different types of utopian consciousness» and to conclude that «there is nothing like a fixable utopian content». Tracing the convergent and the divergent conceptions of hope and utopia in Bloch, Adorno, and Benjamin enhances the polyphony of utopian endeavours.
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Bermudez Brataas, Delilah. "The blurring of genus, genre, and gender in Margaret Cavendish’s utopias." Sederi, no. 29 (2019): 35–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.34136/sederi.2019.2.
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The Blazing World was the first utopia in English written by a woman, and likely, the first science fiction text in English. Yet it was not Margaret Cavendish’s only utopic text. The separatist spaces of her plays, and the virtual communities of her epistolary collections, were earlier utopias that contributed to her construction of Blazing World. Cavendish established the characteristics of utopian literature through the transgression of categories and hybridity. I consider her blurring of genus, genre and gender in two of her utopic texts, Sociable Letters and Blazing World, and her strategic development of the blurring of these categories.
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Kuźmicz, Karol. "Utopia Without the Law – Why Is It Impossible?" Studia Iuridica Lublinensia 30, no. 2 (2021): 285. http://dx.doi.org/10.17951/sil.2021.30.2.285-304.
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<p class="Standard"><span lang="EN-GB">The academic character of the article is connected with the attempt to answer the question asked in the title: Utopia without the law – is it possible? The theoretical arguments provided by the author lead to an affirmative answer to this question and allow for formulating the following thesis: there is no utopia without the law. The law is not only present in utopias, both positive and negative ones (anti-utopias and dystopias) but also, to a great extent, determines their existence and functioning. As a result, it links utopian thinking to reality. Any answer to this question is possible and justifiable in the academic discourse. According to the author of this article not only the law is present in the utopia but the law in the utopia must exist. The essence of the law in utopias is justice, but there is not justice in utopias without wisdom. The Bible, Roman law and philosophical and legal reflection were the sources of an approach to law for the creators of utopia. Referring to the views of such thinkers as: Plato, Immanuel Kant, Rudolf von Ihering, Gustav Radbruch, Karl R. Popper, Bronisław Baczko, the author states that the law is an integral part of both worlds: the utopian world and real world. So, there is not utopia without the law as an idea of jusctice, implemented into the social life of the people who are intelligent beings.</span></p>
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Paniotova, T. S. "Utopian discourse in Latin American culture." Latinskaya Amerika, no. 10 (December 15, 2024): 79–92. http://dx.doi.org/10.31857/s0044748x24100068.
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The paper considers the utopian discourse in Latin American culture late XX — early XXI centuries. The interpretation of utopia as one of the markers of Latin American identity forces us to pay special attention to this phenomenon. The analysis of the Latin American utopian tradition demonstrates the intensity of utopian thinking on the continent, as well as the productivity of its comprehension in the works of Latin American authors. The conceptual growth of the general Latin American reflection on utopia is associated with its practical aspect, which is at odds with the Anglo-Saxon tradition of thought perpetuating utopia as a literary genre. The methodology of textual and cross-cultural analysis used in the article made it possible to identify the main names (A.Reyes, A. A. Roig, G. Cerutti Guldberg, F. Ainsa and others) and original images and concepts that are inherent in the Latin American tradition (“laboratory of European utopias”, “utopia for others” and “our right to utopia”, “utopian function”). As well as it is possible to reveal research paradigms and scientific schools.
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Mazzocchi, Paul. "Beyond the Education of Desire." Theoria 70, no. 176 (2023): 96–120. http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/th.2023.7017604.
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Abstract While critical utopias sought to rescue the political import of utopia, recently scholars have questioned their overemphasis on literary forms and a disempowering pluralism. Challenging the applicability of these claims to one of the instigators of critical utopias, I provide a political reading of Miguel Abensour's understanding of utopia and connect this to councils as a concrete institutional infrastructure. This begins with a re-reading of his influential conception of the ‘education of desire’ in relation to the simulacrum as a utopian ‘model’ that, in rejecting identity-thinking, refuses to reduce utopias to a blueprint. I then turn to conceptualising the utopia of councils through the simulacrum on two fronts: first, as a form subject to innovation in the context of the dialectic of emancipation; second, as a content that aims to both ‘democratise utopia’ by embracing plurality and ‘utopianize democracy’ by expanding the realm of democratic space.
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Khalutornykh, Olga, and Maria Maksimova. "On the prognostic and modeling functions of the social utopias of Russian cosmists." Socium i vlast 4 (2021): 50–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.22394/1996-0522-2021-2-50-57.
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Introduction. The article is focused on analyzing the utopian direction of Russian cosmism and its influence on the Soviet cosmonautics and the development of society in the USSR. This philosophical theory was created in the period that made it possible to incorporate the applied aspects of utopia into scientific and technological progress and thereby embody a number of steps towards the outer space exploration. The authors have developed criteria and parameters for assessing the utopian component of the Russian cosmism theories, which made it possible to bring this construct to a higher level of abstraction and thereby create a working model for conducting such studies in the context of other utopias of models. The purpose of the article is to show the influence of the Russian cosmism utopia on the cosmonautics development in the USSR, develop empirical criteria for evaluating the phenomenon. Achieving the goal required solving the following tasks: 1) considering and analyzing the subject matter of the cosmism utopia; 2) developing parameters for assessing the impact of utopia on the development of the social system; 3) applying the developed parameters to assess the impact of utopian ideas on the development of the Soviet cosmonautics system. Methods. Developing the theoretical model for assessing social utopias, as well as considering and analyzing the cosmism utopia, required the use of structural-functional and systems analysis. The research was conducted within the framework of a synergistic paradigm. Scientific novelty of the research. The article conceptualizes the concept of utopia. It is shown that most of the definitions of utopia as a socio-political ideal focus on the limitations of its existence: utopia cannot be embodied, often has an unscientific character, does not correlate with the real state of the system, i.e. definitions of utopia are often reduced to the negative format. The authors believe that the influence of utopia on society, as a rule, is positive. It is noted that, along with limitations, utopianism has certain unique essential features that qualitatively affect the social projects implementation. Utopia in the systemic understanding acts as a complex of ideas influencing the development of the system, being both internal (since it is created artificially and consciously by the very elements of the system) and an external factor of influence. Unlike Plato’s eidos, the projection of which is reality, utopia is created inductively, but after its creation it again “descends” to the level of reality, since it begins to influence the social model in which it was created. Results. The article discusses the prognostic and modeling functions of the social utopias of Russian cosmists. It has been proved that one of the essential functions of the Russian cosmism utopias is the formation of an ideal type, towards which, in a historical perspective, the real social system begins to strive. It is convincingly demonstrated that utopia acts as a cognitive support and inevitably forms the canvas along which society begins to move, defining the utopian model as an attractor, although such a goal is not always formulated when creating a utopia. This relationship makes it possible to assess the degree of influence of utopian ideas on the formation of reality in each specific case, which, in turn, provides an opportunity to answer the question of how and to what extent the utopian ideal type participates in determining the characteristics and parameters of a real social system. Conclusions. It was found that the social utopia of cosmists as a cognitive concept is an important effective factor influencing the development of the space industry in the USSR. The parameters adopted in the study allow us to describe the measure of its influence as both an internal and an external factor on the development of the society in which it is implemented. The validity of perceiving the utopia of cosmists as a construct with a certain life cycle, the main part of which is the period of functioning, is stated. During this time period, utopian theory can have a significant impact on the actual development of society from various angles.
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Jameson, Fredric. "Utopiens politik." K&K - Kultur og Klasse 40, no. 114 (2012): 13–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.7146/kok.v40i114.15700.
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THE POLITICS OF UTOPIA | The article discusses the continued relevance of utopia in the 21st century as well as the general problems that arise from utopia as a literary and political phenomenon. UtopiaH– both as psychological “wishfulfilment” and as social constructionH– is involved in a contradictory relationship with the political. Utopia presupposes a “suspension” of politics,and hence utopias flourish in periods of social turmoil, but without political agency or direction. The function of utopia is first and foremost negative, in the sense that utopia does not offer a representation of a better future, but rather shows us that we are unable to imagine such a future because of the ideological closure of the system. Therefore, it will be impossible to develop an effective and critical political practice for the age of globalization without the resurrection of utopia.
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Dr., Reetu Khurana (Sardana). "A Modern Utopia: The Future World State of Authority." Siddhanta's International Journal of Advanced Research in Arts & Humanities 1, no. 4 (2024): 56–62. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11068089.
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H. G. Well's A Modern Utopia is the only utopia which has made some contribution to the Utopian thought & technique, although it is indebted to the utopias of the past. Lewis Mumford calls it "the quintessential utopia, as it is written with a free & critical gesture & with a sufficient similarity towards the more important books that come before it." It has the strict regard for the present realities & is altogether a fine & lucid product of the imagination. A Modern Utopia may be distinguished from all other preceding ideal Commonwealths in many respects. First, it breaks with the Utopian tradition by refusing to describe a perfect society. H. G. Wells says that in this novel there will indeed by no perfection & there must also be friction, conflict & waste, but the waste will be enormously less that in this world. Wells's A Modern Utopia begins with the following words: "The Utopia of a modern dreamer must need differ in one fundamental aspect from the No-here & Utopias men planned before Darwin quickened the thought of the world. Those were all perfect & static states, a balance of happiness won for ever against the forces of unrest & disorder that inhere in things. One behold a healthy & simple generation enjoying the fruits of the earth in an atmosphere of virtue & happiness..... But the Modern Utopia must not be static but kinetic." This aspect about Well's Utopia suggests that the imaginary state will be possible & more desirable that the world in which we live. But it will be indeed "Most distinctly impracticable by every scale that reaches only between today & tomorrow."
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BİRİNCİ ERTÜRK, Nazlıcan, Pınar KILIÇ ÖZKAN, and Gaye BİROL. "THE CINE-SPATIAL REFLECTION OF THE CONCEPT OF MICRO-UTOPIA: AN ANALYSIS OF THE FILM ‘DOWNSIZING’." INTERNATIONAL REFEREED JOURNAL OF DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE, no. 26 (2022): 0. http://dx.doi.org/10.17365/tmd.2022.turkey.26.08.
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Within this study, we claim that a relationship can be established between the tendency to minimalization, which stands against the tendency to the consumption-display-luxury, and the micro-utopias that are developed as a reaction to the utopia of mainstream art. Aim: In this study we reconsidered the concept of micro-utopia and aim to extend the conceptual and spatial meanings of it through the analysis of the film “Downsizing”. Method: We focused on the minimalist lifestyle within the framework of the relational aesthetic theory, which looks at art as a tool to create new possibilities through alternative art productions against the utopias of the main art movements. The concept of micro-utopia has been deciphered through the selected film. Not only the micro-utopian urban context is described, but also the social manifestations of spatial reflections are analyzed. Findings: The analyzes show us that utopia and micro-utopia give the same social results in the consumer society. Results: With this study we argue that micro-utopias cannot produce a significant difference in everyday life likewise minimalism cannot be the tool for producing new social solutions on its own.
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Uhlenbruch, Frauke. "Reconstructing Realities from Biblical Utopias." biblical interpretation 23, no. 2 (2015): 191–206. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15685152-00232a03.
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This article addresses two specific issues in reading the Hebrew Bible drawing on utopian theory: the possibility of reconstructing historical reality by reading a text as a utopia, and the variable of changing audiences throughout time and their impact on utopian readings. Suvin’s and Roemer’s definitions of utopia are used, but it is acknowledged that no one definition of utopia is necessarily more correct than another. Approaching the concept of utopia as a flexible ideal type, rather than with a strict definition, is advocated. Utopia is seen as a specific response by the author(s) to a perceived reality; therefore it has been suggested that reading biblical texts as utopia can offer insight into social realities at the time of the text’s creation. This notion is examined critically, drawing on Holquist’s comparison of utopia to the abstraction of chess. While it is possible to make some statements about the social reality at the time of the production of the text by reading the text as a utopian representation, it must always be taken into account that each reconstruction of reality is only one possible interpretation offered by a member of a non-intended audience. A utopia’s relationship to realities is complex, and often aspects of its implied counter-piece, the dystopia, become visible when a transfer of a utopia into reality is attempted.
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Kassens-Noor, Eva. "From Ephemeral Planning to Permanent Urbanism: An Urban Planning Theory of Mega-Events." Urban Planning 1, no. 1 (2016): 41–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.17645/up.v1i1.532.
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Mega-events like the Olympic Games are powerful forces that shape cities. In the wake of mega-events, a variety of positive and negative legacies have remained in host cities. In order to bring some theoretical clarity to debates about legacy creation, I introduce the concepts of the mega-event utopia, dystopia and heterotopia. A mega-event utopia is ideal and imaginary urbanism embracing abstract concepts about economies, socio-political systems, spaces, and societies <em>in</em> the host <em>during</em> events. The mega-event utopia (in contrast to other utopian visions other stakeholders may hold) is dictated by the desires of the mega-event owners irrespective of the realities in the event host. In short, a mega-event utopia is the perfect event host from the owner’s perspective. Mega-event utopias are suggested as a theoretical model for the systematic transformation of their host cities. As large-scale events progress as ever more powerful transformers into this century, <em>mega-event dystopias</em> have emerged as negatives of these idealistic utopias. As hybrid post-event landscapes, m<em>ega-event heterotopias</em> manifest the temporary mega-event utopia as legacy imprints into the long-term realities in hosting cities. Using the Olympic utopia as an example of a mega-event utopia, I theorize utopian visions around four urban traits: economy, image, infrastructure and society. Through the concept of the <em>mega-event legacy utopia</em>, I also provide some insight toward the operationalization of the four urban traits for a city’s economic development, local place marketing, urban development, and public participation.
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Zvjagintseva, M. M. "UTOPIC IDEAS IN RUSSIAN ARCHTECTURE IN CULTURAL ASPECT." Proceedings of the Southwest State University 21, no. 4 (2017): 32–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.21869/2223-1560-2017-21-4-32-38.
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Utopia is one of the most stable archetypical cultural concepts because it reflects the mankind’s desire to improve their world, find a better way of social organization and return to the paradise lost. The idea of the “general welfare domain” had been present in myths and religions of different peoples long before the term “Utopia” appeared as such. Utopian ideals were extremely typical of the European culture due to its extroversion and the aspiration for a more rational existence. Utopia demonstrates a number of very typical features including commonality, special isolation, timelessness (absence of historical times), autarchy (self-sufficiency, independence from the outer world, etc. including the separation from people), urbanism, regimentation and globality. Since XVI-XVII centuries the image of an ideal society has shaped as a city on an island. As a city quite often looks like an ideally transformable space, architectural Utopia plays a very specific role: it personifies the social Utopia. City-planning interpretation of Thomas Moor’s ideas presented a big interest for his contemporaries. Later there were many projects of “ideal” cities that were developed by Italian Renaissance architects. The XVIII century was marked by the appearance of Utopian socialist philosophy. A part of its supporters used to think that metropolitan cities could make a sound foundation for the development of industrial civilization, others advocated the networks of small independent communities. In Russia the first belletristic Utopias appeared in the XVIII century. They continued West-European traditions and preserved all traits of a classical Utopia, however, they acquired national color. All of them pictured an ideal future society that was embodied in new city types. Russian architectural Utopias are closely connected with social processes that predetermined the development of European culture in general. National Utopian architecture had its prime time after the revolution when architects got opportunities to implement their bold ideas
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Amelina, Anna V. "Theoretical Aspect of Studying the Literary Utopias and Dystopias of the First Decades of the 20th Century (on the Genre Identification Problem)." Izvestia of the Ural federal university. Series 2. Humanities and Arts 25, no. 4 (2023): 77–91. http://dx.doi.org/10.15826/izv2.2023.25.4.061.
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This article examines the theoretical problems of studying literary utopias and dystopias. Since utopia and dystopia exist far beyond fiction, it is proposed to approach the analysis of a literary work as a particular case of the manifestation of a universal model of utopian/dystopian consciousness. First, in the texts under consideration, their elements should be identified with the support of research in social philosophy — the structure of utopian consciousness is outlined in the article, and the structure of dystopian consciousness is derived by the author of the article by analogy. If a work shows signs of utopian or dystopian consciousness, the next step in working with the text is to compare its genre features with the established genre invariant developed by literary critics. The article also presents the corresponding conditionally universal genre models of utopia and dystopia. This approach allows, firstly, to reasonably attribute the work to utopias and dystopias in the presence of signs of utopian or dystopian consciousness, secondly, to expand the body of texts that can be considered utopias or dystopias, and, finally, to fix individual genre features and correlate them with the corresponding invariant. During the formation of the genre of literary dystopia, i.e. in the first decades of the twentieth century, when the diversity of genre features in national literatures was extensive, this algorithm helps to fully trace the formation of the national invariant of the genre and establish its national specifics. At the same time, destroyed by the twentieth century, the genre of “classical utopia” is reborn and significantly modified under the influence of the novel form, so the identification of literary utopia becomes difficult — in this situation, the combination of philosophical and literary methods considered in the article also seems productive.
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Leontyev, Gleb Dmitrievich, and Ludmila Stanislavovna Leontieva. "Praxeology of social utopia: protest-project-practice." Социодинамика, no. 2 (February 2020): 64–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.25136/2409-7144.2020.2.30089.
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This article analyzes the phenomenon of utopia as a social alternative in the aspect of its praxeological specificity. Confidence in the idea of the utopian due and despair, justified by dissatisfying real, comprise the existential basis of protest state of mass consciousness. The ideological stimulus to social protest becomes the utopian project that produces a trend to practical development of ideal sociality. Systematic functionality of these praxeological elements of utopia substantiates the goal of determining the specificity of correlation between anti-system protest, socially-constructive project, and practice of social transformation. Anticipatory reflection of reality in utopia reveals the synergetic principle of determination by future, according to which the utopic constructs as trends already exists in the present. Their activation on the level of individual and public consciousness is common for the situation of social entropy and chaos; and socio-utopian ideal manifests as an attractor of protest movement. Faith in its realization is explained by the &ldquo;Principle of Hope&rdquo; of Ernest Bloch; while precaution for the risks of &ldquo;social engineering&rdquo; is reflected in the ideas of Karl Popper and Karl Mannheim. The conclusion is made on the dual nature of praxeological element of the utopia. The first aspect implies that utopia is an anti-system protest as the denial of real, and simultaneously, it is a socially-systemic project as creation of &ldquo;better&rdquo;. The second aspect of dualism means that utopia is a project that transforms public consciousness, and a practice that transforms social being. The presence of direct correlation between the intensity of development of utopian ideas and the level of sociopolitical self-organization is established. The reverse correlation is characteristic for the political ideology. Along with humanistic optimism of the utopia, the author determines the risk of &ldquo;denying denial&rdquo;: practical implementation of utopian project formed within the framework of social protest, denies the utopia itself.
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Davis, Laurence. "Grounded Utopia." Utopian Studies 32, no. 3 (2021): 552–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.32.3.0552.
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Abstract The concept of utopia is from the moment of its inception umbilically tied to modern conceptions of progress that have legitimized settler colonialism, the genocide of Indigenous peoples, the violent subordination of women and racial and sexual “others,” ecocide, and a “grow or die” form of civilization that is now threatening the very existence of all life on the planet. Drawing on the critical socialist insights of Gustav Landauer, Ernst Bloch, and Walter Benjamin, and the “non-Euclidean” utopianism of Ursula K. Le Guin, this article challenges the common association between utopia and culturally dominant ideas of progress and outlines a temporally and spatially grounded alternative approach to the study of utopias suitable to a post-anthropocentric world. The aims of the analysis are at once scholarly and practical: scholarly, inasmuch as it develops conceptual tools conducive to fresh interpretations of utopian texts and practices; and practical, insofar as it vitalizes utopian thought and action by illuminating hitherto obscure aspects of utopianism’s transformative potential.
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Vakilian, Hassan. "Constitutional Utopianism: a Case Study of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran: a Case Study of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran." Forum Prawnicze, no. 6(68) (January 20, 2022): 47–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.32082/fp.6(68).2021.903.
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This paper will examine constitutional utopianism in the specific case of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Given that utopianism in constitution-making is inevitable, some constitutionalists place an emphasis on pragmatic utopianism as the acceptable approach towards constitutional utopia. Also, it is stated that the consistency of constitutional values and principles, mostly derived from constitutionalism, is a necessary element for a possible constitutional utopia. Based on this theoretical framework, the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran is examined as a case study. It is demonstrated that, instead of one constitutional utopia, we can find three inconsistent utopias intertwined in a single constitutional text: a constitutional utopia based on Western Constitutionalism, an Islamic utopia and a leftist utopia. Through examples taken from the preamble and articles of the Constitution, the inconsistency of these utopian worlds is demonstrated. Finally it is concluded that Iranian Constitution of 1979, and its amendments in 1989, may be categorized as failed constitutional utopianism.
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Prosic, Tamara. "Religious Utopianism: From Othering Reality to Othering People." Religions 15, no. 5 (2024): 595. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rel15050595.
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This paper intends to make an important contribution to the studies of religious utopianism by considering religions as comprehensive utopian systems which have an ontological and a social utopian mode. It argues that the ontological mode/utopia is related to human finality and that its fantastical content, abstractness and ontological Othering undermine the transformative powers of left religious social utopianism, while it encourages pernicious social Othering in religious fundamentalism. The article has four sections. In Section 1, it clarifies the definition of utopia on which the paper relies and the reasons for this particular choice. Section 2 discusses the religious ontological utopia and religions as utopian systems and utopian programs. Section 3 utilises E. Bloch’s considerations about concrete and abstract utopias to explain the reasons for the incapacity of politically left orientated religious utopianism to function as a revolutionary force. Finally, the Section 4 discusses the way religious fundamentalism employs social Othering as a way of defending the universality of its ontological vision against competing religious and pseudo-religious universals.
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Nikulin, Alexander. "Dreams of the Russian Revolution in the Utopias of Alexander Chayanov and Andrei Platonov." Sotsiologicheskoe Obozrenie / Russian Sociological Review 17, no. 3 (2018): 256–90. http://dx.doi.org/10.17323/1728-192x-2018-3-256-290.
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The Russian Revolution is the central theme of both A. Chayanov’s novel The Journey of My Brother Alexei to the Land of Peasant Utopia and A. Platonov’s novel Chevengur. The author of this article compares the chronicles and images of the Revolution in the biographies of Chayanov and Platonov as well as the main characters, genres, plots, and structures of the two utopian novels, and questions the very understanding of the history of the Russian Revolution and the possible alternatives of its development. The article focuses not only on the social-economic structure of utopian Moscow and Chevengur but also on the ethical-aesthetic foundations of both utopias. The author argues that the two utopias reconstruct, describe, and criticize the Revolution from different perspectives and positions. In general, Chayanov adheres to a relativistic and pluralistic perception of the Revolution and history, while Platonov, on the contrary, absolutizes the end of humankind history with the eschatological advent of Communism. In Chayanov‘s utopia, the Russian Revolution is presented as a viable alternative to the humanistic-progressive ideals of the metropolitan elites with the moderate populist-socialist ideas of the February Revolution. In Platonov’s utopia, the Revolution is presented as an alternative to the eschatological-ecological transformation of the world by provincial rebels inspired by the October Revolution. Thus, Chayanov’s liberal-cooperative utopia and Platonov’s anarchist-communist utopia contain both an apologia and a criticism of the Russian Revolution in the insights of its past and future victories and defeats, and opens new horizons for alternative interpretations of the Russian Revolution.
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McNealy, Grace. "Dispatches from Utopia: Black Queer Nightlife in Shakedown." Women Gender and Families of Color 10, no. 2 (2022): 179–201. http://dx.doi.org/10.5406/23260947.10.2.05.
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Abstract Many critics have discussed the ways in which Cheryl Dunye's groundbreaking 1996 film The Watermelon Woman employs an exploration and interrogation of history as a means of creating and reshaping the present and future, a utopian extraction (which is ultimately an invention) of a symbolic Black lesbian figure who has been obscured and ignored throughout history. In this vein, this essay examines a work that similarly uncovers Black queer utopias of the past and actualizes queer potential for existence in the present: the 2018 documentary Shakedown, directed by Leilah Weinraub, which depicts a series of Black lesbian strip events in early-2000s Los Angeles. Drawing from a theoretical background that expands the political implications for queer sexuality, community, and performance, including queer of color critique, performance theory, queer utopia, and queer temporality, I present the ways in which joyful and utopic possibilities for Black lesbian being and belonging are opened in the strip clubs depicted by the film. Putting Foucault's model of heterotopias, or actualized utopic spaces existing across cultures, in conversation with these theories, I develop the concept of the “homotopia,” a queer utopian countersite that is both historically relational and temporally detached, existing affectively for queer viewers in multiple times and spaces. I argue that the film therefore not only represents an archival project of capturing and preserving a homotopic nightlife, but, further, carries it across space and time to shape an affective, digital utopia for the viewer. In this way, the documentary's depiction of these events constructs a homotopic space of its own, stimulating the spectator to engage in imagining alternative queer futures.
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Abdelbaky, Ashraf. "A Perfect World or an Oppressive World: A Critical Study of Utopia and Dystopia as Subgenres of Science Fiction." SMART MOVES JOURNAL IJELLH 4, no. 3 (2016): 17. http://dx.doi.org/10.24113/ijellh.v4i3.1201.
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In this article, I investigates the concept of utopia and dystopia in literature since the time of Plato and Thomas More and how it became a significant subgenre of science fiction. I present the kinds of utopia and its fundamental purposes as well as the different explanations for the term utopia and dystopia by numerous critics. I stress the function of science fiction as a literary tool to depict the grim picture and the weaknesses of current societies, dystopias, and to provide a warning for the future of these societies by presenting alternative peaceful societies; utopias. Therefore, I seek to investigate how utopian writings play a central role in uncovering the shortcomings of societies and presenting a formative criticism towards them. I also discuss how utopia and dystopia give women the chance to present their feminist demands using science fiction.
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Płachciak, Adam. "Utopistyczny wymiar rozwoju zrównoważonego." Annales. Etyka w Życiu Gospodarczym 14, no. 1 (2011): 91–100. http://dx.doi.org/10.18778/1899-2226.14.1.09.
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Utopian consciousness is defined as an expression of opposition against actual status quo with simultaneous tendency towards creating alternative projects guarantying possibilities which are not found in actual reality. Utopias usually are recognized as negative concepts. They may often glare with simple and artificial examples or faith their believers in realization of imagined world. Utopists are often called dreamers and people who try to implement unreal ideas into life. Although it can not be forgotten that there is a meaningful difference between abstract utopia and concrete one. In concrete utopia all wishful thinking is changed by seeking real historical alternatives in the boundaries of existed social, political and economical possibilities. If the history of social thought improves that utopias include inspiring force, expose weaknesses of actual order, criticize status quo it should be asked if the idea of sustainable development does not include some elements of utopian thought.
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Greenwood, Martin. "Real Utopia as a Method? Utopian-Sociological Paths from Jameson’s Universal Army to a Postcapitalist Post Office." Sociology 57, no. 2 (2023): 288–304. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/00380385221133205.
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This article uses Frederic Jameson’s An American Utopia: Dual Power and the Universal Army as the inspiration for a utopian-sociological method that brings together aspects of Erik Olin Wright’s ‘Real Utopias’ project and Ruth Levitas’ ‘Imaginative Reconstitution of Society’. It argues that these different approaches can be bridged through presenting fictional sketches of imagined futures of potentially socially transformative institutions alongside more conventional sociological analysis of such. Two concepts associated with the discipline of Utopian Studies – education of desire and concrete utopia – are used to suggest that the British Post Office might perform a better utopian role than Jameson’s chosen vehicle of utopian transformation: the US Army. To further build this case, and to demonstrate one possible application of this method, the history, current condition and an imagined future of the Post Office are explored and some concrete steps in the utopian directions suggested by these are noted.
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Copson, Lynne, and Avi Boukli. "Queer utopias and queer criminology." Criminology & Criminal Justice 20, no. 5 (2020): 510–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1748895820932210.
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Drawing on the concept of utopia to reflect upon the emerging field of queer criminology and José Esteban Muñoz’s account of queer theory as essentially utopian, we draw two conclusions. First, we suggest that queer criminology is currently limited by tinkering at the edges with piecemeal reforms instead of focussing on radical, wholesale changes, and second, that queer theory contains within it the potential for a more holistic reimagining of the social world. In doing so, we question rigid cis/trans binaries and reject accounts of trans/gender that ignore the role of structural harm. We draw on Ernst Bloch’s concepts of ‘abstract’ and ‘concrete’ utopia to suggest that while queer criminology has succeeded in producing largely ‘abstract’ utopias, it struggles in translating these into ‘concrete’ ones. By introducing examples of trans literary utopias as potential transformative cultural forms, however, we consider the potential of queer theory for realising ‘concrete’ utopia through a more radical rethinking of the social world.
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Fortunati, Vita. "Literary Utopias: My Personal Journey." Caietele Echinox 46 (June 1, 2024): 15–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.24193/cechinox.2024.46.01.
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In my paper I point out that the study of literary utopias has been and still is a constant focus on my scientific research. It has accompanied me in different historical and political contexts, helping in analysing and interpreting their complexity. The metaphor I use is that of Utopia as a tree with deep roots from which many branches spread out. In my first book on this topic, I suggested that Utopia could be considered on the whole as a literary genre, characterized by a continuous metamorphosis over time and space. Within such a theoretical framework, I addressed how a variety of utopian main themes, i.e. the journey, the island, and the dream, have been treated in pillars of utopian English literature. Eventually, what fascinated me is that Utopia allowed and still allows me to look at major problems and questions of my contemporary time taking a “lateral” perspective and envisaging new, usually unexpected, political horizons.
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Ingerlab, Michail, and Taisiya Paniotova. "Utopia as social psychotherapy." SHS Web of Conferences 72 (2019): 03021. http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/20197203021.
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The article considers the approach to modern utopian works as a means of social psychotherapy. This context is currently poorly developed, although for the first time “psychological utopia”, as a society of perfect mental health, was mentioned by A. Maslow. Utopia, remaining the object of multidisciplinary research, in the era of digitalization and information technology acquires the ability to quicker than before be reflected in the mass consciousness, to acquire the significance of a cultural phenomenon, to determine the values and meanings of the activities of its adherents. The authors analyze the significance of utopian ideas of rational individualism, techno-utopianism, trans-humanism as ideologies of social movements. The emerging phenomenon of socio-medial psychotherapy is presented for discussion. The authors conclude that the psychotherapeutic meaning of utopias consists in their openness to the future, the denial of the negative present and the ability to construct socially significant ideals reflected in the individual psychology of contemporaries.
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Wagner-Lawlor, Jennifer A. "The Persistence of Utopia: Plasticity and Difference from Roland Barthes to Catherine Malabou." Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy 25, no. 2 (2017): 67–86. http://dx.doi.org/10.5195/jffp.2017.804.
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The theorizing of utopia is a persistent theme throughout several generations of the French continental tradition, and alongside the process theory of Alfred North Whitehead to a large degree recuperates the concept of utopia from its supposed dismissal by Marx and his intellectual descendants. Most recently, attention to the notion of plasticity, popularized (relatively speaking) by Catherine Malabou, extends speculation on utopian possibility. Compelled to answer to Marx’s denigration of utopia as fantasy, the tendency was (still is, for many) to compensate for the absence of a programmatic politics by stressing what is “useful” about utopian dreaming, and therefore where or how exactly a utopian text reveals or creates political drive, or motivates political action. In this essay, I argue that theorists have overlooked the use of utopia as not only the reproduction of difference, or what Malabou calls positive plasticity, but also as, therefore, a disruption; Malabou might prefer the term accident here. Tracing the concept of plasticity from Roland Barthes to Malabou, with a nod at Miguel Abensour, this essay teases out the links between a contemporary notion of plasticity to argue, simply put, that utopia is plastic. This plasticity of the concept ensures its political force. These links, obscured in the essay “Plastic,” Barthes makes only later in his writing. But for Malabou, plasticity underlies a principle of futurity and/as generativity, such that new forms, new meanings, new concepts emerge through difference. Utopia’s horizons of potentiality depend on difference, and on non-achievement. Finally, I argue that the persistence of utopia (Abensour) as a form of thinking is the most important, and political, effect of utopian plasticity.
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Thaler, Mathias. "Hope Abjuring Hope: On the Place of Utopia in Realist Political Theory." Political Theory 46, no. 5 (2017): 671–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0090591717740324.
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This essay reconstructs the place of utopia in realist political theory, by examining the ways in which the literary genre of critical utopias can productively unsettle ongoing discussions about “how to do political theory.” I start by analyzing two prominent accounts of the relationship between realism and utopia: “real utopia” (Erik Olin Wright et al.) and “dystopic liberalism” (Judith Shklar et al.). Elaborating on Raymond Geuss’s recent reflections, the essay then claims that an engagement with literature can shift the focus of these accounts. Utopian fiction, I maintain, is useful for comprehending what is (thus enhancing our understanding of the world) and for contemplating what might be (thus nurturing the hope for a better future). Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel The Dispossessed deploys this double function in an exemplary fashion: through her dynamic and open-ended portrayal of an Anarchist community, Le Guin succeeds in imagining a utopia that negates the status quo, without striving to construct a perfect society. The book’s radical, yet ambiguous, narrative hence reveals a strategy for locating utopia within realist political theory that moves beyond the positions dominating the current debate. Reading The Dispossessed ultimately demonstrates that realism without utopia is status quo–affirming, while utopia without realism is wishful thinking.
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Wenning, Mario. "The Dignity of Utopian Imagination." Social Imaginaries 5, no. 1 (2019): 181–98. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/si20195110.
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The utopian imagination is ambivalent in that it both escapes from, while also critically engaging with contemporary societies and forms of living. This paper calls to mind the dignity of utopian longing as well as common objections against political interpretations of utopia. Philosophical utopias, it is argued, make deliberative use of the imagination by sharpening a sense of possibility and providing reasons for (or against) utopian thought-images. On this account, utopias draw on irony and satire as constructive modes of imagining unrealized potentials and exposing what falls short of these potentials. Thus conceived, the utopian imagination is not the enemy, but an essential aid of practical reason.
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Daniel, Antje. "“A simple post-growth life”: The Green Camp Gallery Project as Lived Ecotopia in Urban South Africa." Utopian Studies 33, no. 2 (2022): 274–90. http://dx.doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.33.2.0274.
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ABSTRACT Utopias in Africa is an emerging academic field. While we are witnessing an increasing number of fictional and ideological utopias, little attention is paid to lived utopias. The Green Camp Gallery Project is such a lived utopia, which predominantly strives for realizing desired future imaginations in daily practices. Localized in the urban context of Durban (South Africa), in a derelict house in the industrial area, the Green Camp strives for a “simple post-growth life,” which is closely related to nature and the philosophy of Ubuntu. In so doing, the Green Camp responds to the overlapping crisis of urbanity and offers an alternative future aspiration. The Green Camp is not perfect and it is not able to solve the deep problems of South African society, but it offers an “island” of hope and imagination in a challenging urban environment. At the same time the lived utopia reveals the agency of the urban marginalized and contradicts widespread assumptions concerning environmentalism. Based on a qualitative study, the article takes an unusual perspective by analyzing the imagination of lived utopia in an emerging utopian hotspot—Africa.
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Montoya Campuzano, Pablo. "Las utopías de Pedro Gómez Valderrama." Estudios de Literatura Colombiana, no. 15 (August 23, 2013): 99–112. http://dx.doi.org/10.17533/udea.elc.16436.
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Resumen: Este artículo hace un recorrido por distintas formas utópicas que alimentan la obra narrativa de Pedro Gómez Valderrama. Entre la indagación histórica y la imaginación literaria, y con una riquísima intertextualidad, el escritor colombiano propone la paradoja propia de las utopías: El impulso entusiasta hacia su concreción y las consecuencias siniestras que generan. Descriptores: Gómez Valderrama, Pedro; Utopía en la literatura; Intertextualidad. Abstract: This article goes through different utopian forms which nourish the narrative production of Pedro Gómez Valderrama. From historical questioning to literary imagination, and with a rich intertextuality, the Colombian writer proposes the paradox belonging to the utopias: The impulse toward its realization and the sinister consequences they generate. Key words: Gómez Valderrama, Pedro; Utopia in literature; Intertextuality.
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Ahmad, Muhammad Mahmood, Sohail Ahmad Saeed, and Ahmad Naeem. "The Dialectics of Utopia and Utopian Impulse." Global Language Review VII, no. I (2022): 180–89. http://dx.doi.org/10.31703/glr.2022(vii-i).16.
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This paper aims to offer a dialectical view of Utopia and utopian impulse in utopian theory. Politically, Utopia is associated with a reductionist leftist politics which overlooks essential human diversity and psycho-social conflicts by imposing harmony and progress through implicit violence. In aesthetic representation, Utopia is seen as an ideal society which offers a glorious transformation of mankind living in a society free of wants and conflicts. However, Utopian theory is essentially different from such meta narratives about Utopia and its pr-axis. Instead of focusing on the political or aesthetic concept of Utopia, it brings forth a dialectical analysis of Utopia and Utopian impulse to understand its aesthetic, political and theoretical dimensions. This paper claims that the utopian impulse is the central subtext of diverse utopian manifestations, which offers a narrative of critique and a continual process of theoretical sublimation and pursuit of an ideal society free of systemic ills.
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Podaropoulos, Yiorgos. "Beyond Grammars of Utopia: Crisis of Imagination and Utopianism by Negation or Affirmation in James Joyce’s <em>Ulysses</em>." Junctions: Graduate Journal of the Humanities 8, no. 1 (2024): 8–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.33391/jgjh.180.
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Do utopias emerge from envisioning where we want to live or where we do not want to live? According to Theodor Adorno, polarity, i.e. the grammatical distinction between affirmation and negation, is central to utopian thinking and showcases a crisis of imagination, as we can only conceive a utopian world by negating a given reality (Adorno in Bloch 1975, 68-70). My paper negotiates this idea through a grammatical-conceptual reading of James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922). Specifically, it argues that Ulysses first lays out a negative utopianism following Homer’s Odyssey but in the course of the narrative tests out the logical necessity that precludes affirmative utopian thinking. Starting from episode 12, ‘Cyclops,’ the Homeric utopianism ‘by negation’ (De Jong 2001, 233-35) seems inadequate to erect a utopian project, for a negative dystopia need not amount to a utopia; the Joycean Ireland negates the Homeric dystopia without being a utopia either. Utopianism by negation proves exclusionary too, for a negative utopia is dystopian for the ones negated, like nationalistic Ireland is a dystopia for a Jew like the protagonist, Leopold Bloom. Bloom offers an alternative to negative thinking by envisioning a utopian state that affirms everyone. Climactically, in episode 18 ‘Penelope’, Molly Bloom answers ‘yes’ to the query ‘where’. This unsyntactical, absurd affirmation exposes the limits of imagination, as delineated by Adorno, since we cannot understand possible worlds that are ‘yes’ as a response to ‘where’. However, it also prefigures conceptual structures yet to come, structures that may build utopian worlds based on the affirmation ‘where one does want to live’. These conceptual mechanisms that underlie utopian world-making and are captured through grammatical structures are identified as ‘grammars of utopia’ and constitute the overarching theoretical project in which this paper is inscribed.
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Seeger, Sean. "The Postcritical Utopia." Utopian Studies 34, no. 1 (2023): 1–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.34.1.0001.
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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.
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Pavlov, Alexander V. "Utopia in the Recent Western Marxism: Anomaly, Hope, Science." Voprosy Filosofii, no. 9 (2021): 25–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.21146/0042-8744-2021-9-25-36.
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The article investigates the problem of utopia in actual Marxism. It is well known that Marx and Engels opposed their “scientific socialism” to “utopian socialism”. The followers of Marx have long supported this orthodox teaching. However, since the middle of the 20th century, Western Marxists have begun to talk about utopia as the central element of their social philosophy. Sociologist Alvin Goldner called these “anomalies”. They stood out as a separate system of critical Marxism from the theoretical system of “scientific Marxism”. The first person to write about utopia was Ernst Bloch. Then Herbert Marcuse turned to the subject. Since the early 1990’s, when it would seem that Marxism was in crisis due to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the failure of left-wing politics, it has been actively theorized about utopia. In addition to philosophers (Fredric Jameson, Slavoj Žižek) various types of sociologists (Erik Olin Wright, David Harvey) begin to write about utopia. The sociologist Göran Therborn called this trend in actual Marxism “American futurism”. The author of the paper writes that left-wing sociologists and philosophers abandon the traditional understanding of utopia (“blueprint”) and think it through in a new way. Sociologists try to talk about utopia in terms of science (“real utopias”), while philosophers theorize utopia as a hope, a horizon of the impossible, a desire for a better future. Despite the fact that these are two different understandings of utopia, the important thing is that for recent Marxists (even “scientific” ones), utopia is one of the most important categories of social theory.
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Fitting, Peter. "Reconsiderations of the Separatist Paradigm in Recent Feminist Science Fiction." Science Fiction Studies 19, Part 1 (1992): 32–48. https://doi.org/10.1525/sfs.19.1.032.
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Pamela Sargent’s The Shore of Women (1986), Joan Slonczewski’s A Door into Ocean (1986), and Sheri Tepper’s The Gate to Women’s Country (1988) may be read as interlocutors in a dialogue with the feminist utopias of the 1970s. In terms of its setting and plot, Sargent’s The Shore of Women portrays a matriarchal society which dominates and exploits men as a failed utopia; and in its appeal for a reconciliation of the sexes it seems to have accommodated both homophobia and heterosexism through the narrative of a conversion to heterosexuality. The Gate to Women’s Country shifts the utopian focus away from the contours of the alternative community to the mechanism for achieving the better society—one based on changing “human nature” and the male predisposition to violence, a problem for which Sargent had no solution. A Door into Ocean, finally, argues forcibly that there are limits to what can or must be done to protect a utopia, rejecting the strategies enunciated in the 1970s by a whole range of utopias which acknowledged the necessity of violence to bring about a new society. In contrast to the utopias of the 1970s, these three novels do not focus on the evocations of alternative societies, but rather blend representations of alternative patterns of life with more rhetorical and figurative evocations of a transformed world. In the manner of the critical utopia, these three novels propose correctives to what their authors saw as some of the excesses of the 1970s utopias. Yet at time these works seem to go too far in their implied critiques of the ’70s utopias. The references here to liminality—door, gate, shore—seem to stand not only for a vision of a world on the verge of being born, but as a retreat, the doorway through which the authors are backing away from the utopian hopes and dreams of the ’70s—a gesture which to some extent repudiates the earlier utopian energies. (PF)
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Zhgileva, Larisa A. "Discourse Space for Studying the Phenomenon of Utopia in Modern Russia: A Paradigmatic Analysis." Vestnik of Northern (Arctic) Federal University. Series Humanitarian and Social Sciences, no. 1 (March 1, 2024): 85–98. http://dx.doi.org/10.37482/2687-1505-v323.
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Using the example of Russian discourse, the article demonstrates modern trends in the study of utopias. Research topics are analysed and key conceptual trends are highlighted. The subject of consideration is monographs, dissertations and articles published in scholarly peer-reviewed journals, the selection criteria being relevance, novelty, use of modern methodology, as well as practical significance. The analysis involved general research methods. The works span between 2020 and 2023, which includes the period of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as serious changes in the global political situation. The author hypothesizes that the pandemic and foreign policy events of 2022–2023 have updated the topics of utopia and dystopia studies. The paper concludes that the interest in the subject remains strong and that in-depth historical and philosophical research into this phenomenon is being conducted. In Russian discourse, utopia is often viewed as “a place that does not exist”. When utopia is interpreted as a “blessed land”, it represents an ideal or an ever-elusive horizon line. In cases where the feasibility of implementing a utopia is discussed, it is noted that it ceases to be a utopia and undergoes a number of fundamental changes, turning into its antipode. The possibility of serious social changes, dreamed of by the authors of utopias, is not categorically denied by researchers, the reservation being that people must be prepared for a new social order, different from the existing models of society. The most successful form of a utopian work is still considered to be a narrative. With the use of modern technologies, utopia is primarily visualized in disaster films or computer games, that is, once again takes on a shape of its opposite. However, despite a significant amount of research published on the problems of utopia, Russian discourse remains quite conservative in relation to the global trends in understanding and studying this phenomenon.
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Konstan, David. "Post-Utopia: The Long View." Humanities 10, no. 2 (2021): 65. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/h10020065.
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The present article is divided into three parts. The first discusses the nature of utopias and their hypothetical anti-type, dystopias, and also disaster scenarios that are sometimes assimilated to dystopias, with reference also to the idea of post-utopia. An argument is made for the continuity of the utopian impulse, even in an age when brutal wars and forms of oppression have caused many to lose faith in any form of collectivity. Representations of social breakdown and its apparent opposite, totalitarian rigidity, tend to privilege the very individualism that the utopian vision aspires to overcome. The second part looks at examples of each of these types drawn from classical Greek and Roman literature, with a view to seeing how utopias were conceived at a time before the emergence of the modern ideology of the pre-social self. Finally, the third part examines several stories from the collection A People’s Future of the United States which imagine life in the near future. While most illustrate the failure of confidence in the social that has encouraged the intuition that a utopian future is passé, one, it is suggested, reconceives the relation between the individual and the social in a way that points to the renewed possibility of the utopian.
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Doyle, Charles Clay. "Is It “A Utopia” or “An Utopia”?" Moreana 36 (Number 137), no. 1 (1999): 35–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/more.1999.36.1.4.
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In early texts, when an indefinite article immediately preceded the English noun utopia or utopian or the adjective utopian (or the eu- counterparts of such words), the article was nearly always an, even though (during much of that interval, at least) those “utopian” words were commonly pronounced with an initial consonant /y/, as they are today. Only in the middle of the nineteenth century did constructions like a utopia and a utopian start to appear with any regularity in the written record. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, thirty-three recorded instances of an occur before “utopian” words, only two of a.
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Gudilina, Ekaterina Nikolaevna, and Mikhail Mikhailovich Poroshkov. "On the problem of the structure-forming elements of Utopian Discourse and its specifics." Философия и культура, no. 3 (March 2022): 38–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.7256/2454-0757.2022.3.37704.
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The subject of the research is utopian discourse, which unites all the variety of concepts related in one way or another to utopia, utopian dimension of reality and understanding of the Future (utopian element, utopian impulse, utopian optics, utopianism, utopian consciousness, utopian thinking, dystopia, etc.). Special attention is paid to the study of the explanatory and predictive potential of utopian discourse, identifying its boundaries and analysis of the relationship with ideological discourse. The conceptualization of utopian discourse is based on an instrumental approach to utopia, which is complemented by the communicative approach and the interpretive concept of culture by K. Geertz, which justifies the possibility of considering utopian discourse as a semantic and symbolic matrix. The novelty of the research is to identify and substantiate the exaggerated dichotomy of thinking and otherness as the structure-forming elements of utopian discourse. This contributed to the assessment of utopian discourse as a peculiar but viable form of reflection of political reality and the construction, consolidation and comprehension of values. The proposed algorithm of thinking with dichotomies made it possible to trace the process of constructing utopian discourse on the basis of a pyramid of dichotomies, consisting of system-forming, key and peripheral dichotomies. The article clarifies that the otherness of utopian discourse is manifested in the historicity, radicality and inextricable connection of utopian discourse with the Present. The indicated specificity of utopian discourse has led to the clarification of the reasons for the negative and/or skeptical attitude towards utopia and utopian discourse, as well as to the definition of its strengths and weaknesses. The authors conclude that despite the identified shortcomings, which often lead utopias to periodic displacement from the framework of actual political life, utopian discourse can have a significant impact on the change and development of society.
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Alexeeva, Ekaterina. "Artificial Intelligence: Utopia and Subjectlessness." ANOTHER ONE 2, no. 1 (2024): 46–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.62988/2949-5202-2024-2-1-46-63.
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The article proposes that some properties of artificial intelligence allow it to become a part of modern utopian thinking. Utopia is understood as accumulated collective desires that can guide the activity of communities in opposition to its classical literary and philosophical meaning. Utopia, on the one hand, is aimed at forming ideas about what does not exist yet. On the other hand, it is aimed at establishing some proper order of things, which is necessary beyond the will of individual subjects. Therefore, it is assumed that one of the key properties of the utopian order of things is subjectlessness – the absence of the properties of subjectivity (for example: consciousness and reflexivity, self-perception, experience, ability to purposeful action, etc.). The article considers various artificial intelligence projects, including AGI, which are divided by the degree of their anthropomorphism. It is shown that the most probable scenarios of AI development are related to the development of artificial systems that do not possess subjectivity, nevertheless being significant actors. This is considered as one of the reasons why contemporary utopian thinking assumes that the development of artificial intelligence can lead to the realization of utopian projects. Such projects are possible not only in the political sphere, but also in the field of epistemic practices. It is shown how artificial intelligence becomes a part of epistemic and political utopias.
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Knop, Karen. "Utopia without Apology: Form and Imagination in the Work of Ronald St. John Macdonald." Canadian Yearbook of international Law/Annuaire canadien de droit international 40 (2003): 287–308. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0069005800008067.
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SummaryThe word “utopia” is a pun on eu topos (a good place) and ou topos (no place). While utopia in the sense of eu topos refers to an ideal society and its realization, utopia in the sense of ou topos emphasizes a mode of narrative rather than a political goal. Traditionally, the utopian form is a traveller’s account of a visit to an imaginary country where the journey is either to a far-off land or to the distant future. This article offers an appreciation of Ronald St. John Macdonald as a practitioner, presenter, and promoter of the utopian form in international law. Beyond the ability of a particular eu-topia to confront us with a complete package of ideas for international law that would otherwise remain unimagined, ou-topia generally encourages comprehensive and radical thinking about international law’s future and perhaps even jolts us into a heightened consciousness of our creativity and potential for change. The article also touches on the corresponding disadvantages of utopias and speculates that Macdonald reconciles the advantages and disadvantages partly through the fact that the power of the utopian form is available even to those who have been historically and unjustly excluded from international law.
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Urbańczyk, Agnieszka. "Terra Ignota. Marksizm kosmiczny jako marksizm apofatyczny." Praktyka Teoretyczna 41, no. 3 (2021): 91–111. http://dx.doi.org/10.14746/prt.2021.3.5.
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Tekst poświęcony jest problematyzującemu charakter współczesnych utopii cyklowi Terra Ignota Ady Palmer. Opisywanemu przez Palmer dwudziestemu piątemu wiekowi, w którym zniesiono płeć kulturową, państwa narodowe czy tradycyjny model rodziny, nie znosząc zarazem nierówności, przeciwstawiona zostaje postawa Utopian – niewielkiego ułamka fikcyjnej populacji. Choć ukazywana w powieściach rzeczywistość przez większość bohaterów traktowana jest jako utopia, Utopianie odmawiają przystania na nią, podejmując się nieustającej pracy w imię zerwania ze współczesnością i zobowiązując się poświęcić całe życie przyszłości. Utopia, ponieważ państwa pozbawione są terytoriów, nie może utworzyć na Ziemi przestrzennej enklawy i decyduje się na terraformację Marsa, choć nie dysponuje jednolitą wizją przyszłości i wspólnym celem poza opuszczeniem Ziemi. Działania Utopian nie są podejmowane w imię koherentnej wizji, a wypływają ze sprzeciwu wobec porządku faktycznego, znaturalizowanego przez większość społeczeństwa. Strategia Utopian omówiona zostaje jako przykład marksizmu apofatycznego, który postulował China Miéville. Niedostarczający pozytywnych projektów marksizm apofatyczny pozostaje potężnym narzędziem krytyki współczesności i bodźcem pobudzającym do działania.
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Guneri, Gizem Deniz. "Peter Cook Beyond Archigram." Prostor 28, no. 1 (59) (2020): 130–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.31522/p.28.1(59).8.
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This text visits and manifests the critical utopianism embedded in the praxis of Peter Cook, within which resides a promising mode of architectural thinking based on reflexive inquiries rather than absolute and closed utopias. It aims to revert questions that link utopia and spatial determinism towards questions that revolve around utopian methodologies that become trainings of architectural imagination.
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Bronikov, Ignat, and Irina Khmyrova-Pruel. "INCONSISTENCY OF UTOPIAN CONSCIOSNESS." Studia Humanitatis 20, no. 3 (2021): 30–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.15393/j12.art.2021.3763.
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Utopia is undoubtedly an integral part of human culture, since it is impossible to imagine a person who would not dream of paradise shores. But as widespread as utopia is, it is also obscure. Perhaps in order to shed light on the mystery of the essence of utopia, it is necessary to turn to utopian consciousness. Namely we need to analyze utopian consciousness itself, as well as its character and features, hoping to eventually get an unambiguous understanding of what utopian consciousness is and where it originates from, thereby getting closer to utopia itself. The article presents an attempt at such an analysis.