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Showing papers on "Dystopia published in 1987"


Journal Article
01 Jan 1987-Daedalus
TL;DR: Unlike Offred, feminists have long recognized as imperative the task of seeking out, defining, and criticizing the complex reality that governs the ways the authors think, the values they hold, and the relationships they share, especially with regard to gender.
Abstract: In Margaret Atwood's powerful novel The Handmaid's Tale,1 the heroine Offred, a member of a new class of "two legged wombs" in a dystopian society, often thinks to herself, "Context is all." Offred reminds us of an important truth: at each moment of our lives our every thought, value, and act?from the most mundane to the most lofty?takes its meaning and purpose from the wider political and social reality that constitutes and conditions us. In her newly reduced circumstances, Offred comes to see that matters beyond one's immediate purview make a great deal of difference with respect to living a more or less free and fully human life. But her realization comes too late. Unlike Offred, feminists have long recognized as imperative the task of seeking out, defining, and criticizing the complex reality that governs the ways we think, the values we hold, and the relationships we share, especially with regard to gender. If context is all, then feminism in its various guises is committed to uncovering what is all around us and to revealing the power relations that constitute the creatures we become. "The personal is the political" is the credo of this critical practice.

251 citations


Book
01 Jan 1987
TL;DR: In the country of last things as mentioned in this paper is a tense, psychological take on the dystopian novel and continues Auster's deep exploration of his central themes: the modern city, the mysteries of storytelling, and the elusive and unstable nature of truth.
Abstract: 'That is how it works in the City. Every time you think you know the answer to a question, you discover that the question makes no sense . . .' This is the story of Anna Blume and her journey to find her lost brother, William, in the unnamed City. Like the City itself, however, it is a journey that is doomed, and so all that is left is Anna's unwritten account of what happened. Paul Auster takes us to an unspecified and devastated world in which the self disappears amidst the horrors that surround us. But this is not just an imaginary, futuristic world: like the settings of Kafka stories, it is one that echoes our own, and in doing so addresses some of our darker legacies. In the Country of Last Things is a tense, psychological take on the dystopian novel. It continues Auster's deep exploration of his central themes: the modern city, the mysteries of storytelling, and the elusive and unstable nature of truth.

47 citations





Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the focus is on the New Right ideology as applied in architecture; in particular, Alice Coleman's scientific critique of planned housing, highlighting her characteristically regressive view of social life, her mean notion of design, and her modish dismissal of utopian desire in architecture.

3 citations


01 Jan 1987
TL;DR: The nouvelle astronomie et l'utopie du voyage dans la lune chez Ben Jonson, John Donne, John Wilkins, Francis Godwin this paper.
Abstract: La nouvelle astronomie et l'utopie du voyage dans la lune chez Ben Jonson, John Donne, John Wilkins, Francis Godwin

2 citations