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Showing papers on "Dystopia published in 2013"


MonographDOI
02 May 2013
TL;DR: Basu and Hintz as discussed by the authors discuss the role of young adults in environmental degradation in contemporary YA Dystopian novels, including Divergent and The Dandelion in the Spring of the Spring in Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games Trilogy.
Abstract: Introduction Balaka Basu, Katherine R. Broad, and Carrie Hintz Part I: Freedom and Constraint: Adolescent Liberty and Self Determination 1. What Faction Are You In?: The Pleasure of Being Sorted in Veronica Roth's Divergent Balaka Basu 2. Coming of Age in Dystopia: Reading Genre in Holly Black's Curse Workers Series Emily Lauer 3. Embodying the Postmetropolis in Catherine Fisher's Incarceron and Sapphique Carissa Turner Smith Part II: Society and Environment: Building a Better World 4. Hope in Dark Times: Climate Change and the World Risk Society in Saci Lloyd's The Carbon Diaries 2015 and 2017 Alexa Weik von Mossner 5. Educating Desire, Choosing Justice? Susan Beth Pfeffer's Last Survivors Series and Julie Bertagna's Exodus Claire P. Curtis 6. On the Brink: The Role of Young Adult Culture in Environmental Degradation Elaine Ostry Part III: Radical or Conservative? Polemics of the Future 7. "The Dandelion in the Spring": Utopia as Romance in Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games Trilogy Katherine R. Broad 8. The Future is Pale: Race in Contemporary Young Adult Dystopian Novels Mary J. Couzelis 9. Technology and Models of Literacy in Young Adult Dystopian Fiction Kristi McDuffie Part IV: Biotechnologies of the Self: Humanity in a Posthuman Age 10. Dystopian Sacrifice, Scapegoats, and Neal Shusterman's Unwind Susan Louise Stewart 11. The Soul of the Clone: Coming of Age as a Posthuman in Nancy Farmer's The House of the Scorpion Erin T. Newcomb 12. Parables for the Postmodern, Post-9.11, and Posthuman World: Carrie Ryan's Forest of Hands and Teeth Books, M. T. Anderson's Feed, and Mary E. Pearson's The Adoration of Jenna Fox Thomas J. Morrissey

106 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article explored the potential educational uses of these young adult dystopias and argued that reading these texts may be a small step in the direction of engaging students in social justice issues and, perhaps, sparking more overt political action.
Abstract: Although dystopian novels have been prevalent under the young adult banner for decades, their abundance and popularity post-9/11 is noteworthy. The 21st century has found academics and laypersons alike discussing the supposed political apathy of young adults and teenagers of the Millennial Generation. However, despite this common complaint--and contrary to ample research that indicates that this age group has traditionally been uninterested in global politics--the reading preferences of this generation indicate that this label of "apolitical" may not be as fitting as some believe. In fact, the popularity of young adult dystopian literature, which is ripe with these political themes, suggests that this group is actually quite interested in these topics, although they often turn to the safe confines of fiction to wrestle with them. This article explores the potential educational uses of these young adult dystopias and argues that reading these texts may be a small step in the direction of engaging students in social justice issues and, perhaps, sparking more overt political action. ********** Although dystopian novels have been prevalent under the young adult (YA) banner for decades, their abundance and popularity post-9/11 is noteworthy. In the 21st century academics and laypersons alike have discussed the supposed political apathy of young adults and teenagers of the Millennial Generation (1980-2000), (1) causing national panic (at least around election time) about the future of democracy in the United States (Pew Research, 2010; Wishon, 2012). However, despite this common complaint--and contrary to ample research and poll data that indicates that this age group has traditionally been uninterested in current events, global politics, environmental concerns, and ethical debates involving scientific invention, human trafficking, and social equity--the reading preferences of this generation indicate that this label of "apolitical" may not be as fitting as some believe. In fact, the popularity of young adult dystopia, which is ripe with these political themes, suggests that this group is actually quite interested in these topics, although they often turn to the safe confines of fiction to wrestle with them. This article brings current YA dystopian novels such as Feed (Anderson, 2002) and Little Brother (Doctorow, 2008), as well as series such as "The Hunger Games" (Collins, 2008, 2009, 2010), "Uglies" (Westerfield 2005, 2006, 2007), and "Matched" (Condie, 2010, 2011), into conversation with various ancestor texts. Analyzing the socio-political commentary present within this popular body of literature provides insights into the concerns this generation may have for the future--concerns which are not always being expressed via traditional democratic processes. This article explores the reasons why this subgenre has recently become so popular with teen audiences, especially in light of the social critiques this group receives, and argues that these reading practices indicate that today's youth are often portrayed unjustly. Specifically, this article argues that the post-9/11 climate has contributed to the popularity of these YA dystopias as they present fictional fear-based scenarios that align with contemporary cultural concerns. While these texts do not always serve as direct allegories for 9/11, or draw attention to specifically post-9/11 concerns (although many do), they all provide social commentary that is relevant to society today. The eager consumption of this social commentary by youth is important to consider. The popularity of these novels may suggest that young adults do not warrant being classified as politically disengaged. Because much of the research concerning this generation's political involvement and civic illiteracy is convincing, critics might argue that this political engagement via the page is not enough to celebrate. However, this article explores the potential educational uses of these YA dystopias and contends that reading these texts may be a small step in the direction of engaging students in social justice issues and, perhaps, sparking more overt political action. …

45 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the discussion of virtual ethnography within the larger political/economic changes of twenty-first century consumer capitalism and suggests that increasingly our entire social world is a virtual world and that there were very particular utopian and dystopian framings of virtual community growing out of that history.
Abstract: This article situates the discussion of virtual ethnography within the larger political/economic changes of twenty-first century consumer capitalism and suggests that increasingly our entire social world is a virtual world and that there were very particular utopian and dystopian framings of virtual community growing out of that history. The article also situates the discussion of virtual ethnography within the anthropological ‘crisis of representation’ discussion to suggest there are many parallels between the two discussions. These discussions suggest that while ethnographers have recognised that all societies are virtual except, maybe the smallest, new information technologies, and particularly, the Internet create a persistent virtual space that transforms earlier notions of the imagined society. Finally, the article suggests that educational ethnographers are in a position to discuss the new pedagogical issues that arise when attempting to do ethnography in our contemporary virtual world.

41 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jun 2013-Futures
TL;DR: The authors explored the role of science fiction in creating prototypes of imagined and better future evident in these narratives even when they are distinct from the futures they predict, and explored the contributions and warnings of utopian and dystopian stories to the development and the specific realisation of future business visions.

40 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Korean Wave phenomenon as discussed by the authors is a reaction of the Asian people to the West-dominated globalization in popular culture, and it has attracted the attention of not only the general public, but also academic and other researchers because of the farreaching ramifications in terms of the Korean national economy and the cultural unity and exchange among the Asian peoples.
Abstract: In this article I analyze “the Korean Wave (hallyu),” the term coined by Chinese media towards the end of the last millennium to describe the meteoric rise in the popularity of Korean pop culture in Asian countries. It has attracted the attention of not only the general public, but also academic and other researchers because of the far-reaching ramifications in terms of the Korean national economy and the cultural unity and exchange among the Asian peoples.The world of popular entertainment has seen a high degree of globalization with Hollywood as its utopia. However, Hollywood has proved to be a dystopia to the peoples of Asia, in that it is dominated by non-Asians, and underpinned by the contemporary Western ethos, i.e. individualism, commercialism and sensationalism. Scenes containing unadulterated sex and violence, which offend the sensitivities of the Asian general public, are almost an integral part of many a commercially successful film. Opportunities for big roles are almost non-existent to ethnic Asian actors. Romantic heroes and heroines are very rarely played by Asian actors, who usually appear as weird villains or, very rarely, wizards with supernatural powers.In contemporary Korean cinemas, TV dramas and pop music, globalization is also evident. The stars follow the world trend in performance, presentation and fashion, and emulate their Western compatriots. English is often used as lyrics in songs. However, the big difference is that the performers have distinct Asian physical features, and the dramas reflect the traditional Asian values and ethos, which helps to make the Asian fans feel at home. The “Asian-ness” is no longer something weird or marginal, but takes center stage. Therefore there is a sense in which the Korean Wave is a reaction of the Asian people to the West-dominated globalization in popular culture. But what distinguishes the Korean Wave from other similar phenomena, such as Bollywood and Nollywood, is the juxtaposition of globalized and traditional Korean cultures.

40 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
Miguel Alzola1
TL;DR: In this paper, the moral permissibility of corporate political activities under the existing legal framework in the United States is examined and the authors unpacks and examines the standard case studies.
Abstract: This article is concerned with the moral permissibility of corporate political activities under the existing legal framework in the United States. The author unpacks and examines the standard case ...

38 citations


01 Jan 2013
TL;DR: Kim et al. as discussed by the authors studied the historical experience of capitalism's globalization through the vantage point of South Korean cinema and revealed how this film culture's portrayals of "intimacy" and "distance" provide a method for visualizing the ongoing aftereffects of geopolitical historical change that may be invisible to the naked eye.
Abstract: Author(s): Kim, Jisung Catherine | Advisor(s): Whissel, Kristen M | Abstract: In The Intimacy of Distance, I reconceive the historical experience of capitalism's globalization through the vantage point of South Korean cinema. According to world leaders' discursive construction of South Korea, South Korea is a site of "progress" that proves the superiority of the free market capitalist system for "developing" the so-called "Third World." Challenging this contention, my dissertation demonstrates how recent South Korean cinema made between 1998 and the first decade of the twenty-first century rearticulates South Korea as a site of economic disaster, ongoing historical trauma and what I call impassible "transmodernity" (compulsory capitalist restructuring alongside, and in conflict with, deep-seated tradition). Made during the first years after the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis and the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, the films under consideration here visualize the various dystopian social and economic changes attendant upon epidemic capitalist restructuring: social alienation, familial fragmentation, and widening economic division. The revamped film industry and liberalization of censorship laws that accompanied this historical moment also enabled South Korean filmmakers to explore unresolved and long repressed sociopolitical tensions with North Korea and the United States. Through readings of feature-length films across the genres of melodrama, romance, blockbuster, horror and youth-oriented art films, accompanied by sociological and historical research that situates South Korean films within the broader transnational history of the Cold War and the regional history of South Korean nation-building, I reveal how this film culture's portrayals of "intimacy" and "distance" provide a method for visualizing the ongoing aftereffects of geopolitical historical change that may be invisible to the naked eye. My project explains how modes of nonlinear temporality, narrative patterning, and imagery of violence, competition, individualism and diaspora in stories of everyday life covertly represent historical experiences of U.S. militarism, heartrending national division, and volatile boom-and-bust economic cycles. By connecting impossibilities in personal life to larger crisis in national and transnational life, my project reexamines taken-for-granted perspectives and helps us see anew the ongoing intersection of American imperialism, South Korea and the globalization of capitalism since the mid-century era.

35 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
Emma Price1
TL;DR: The impact of social and digital media in political discussions and activities is often assessed in terms of either its utopian or dystopian potential as discussed by the authors, and as Farrell notes, analysis between the two po...
Abstract: The impact of social and digital media in political discussions and activities is often assessed in terms of either its utopian or dystopian potential. As Farrell notes, analysis between the two po...

31 citations


DOI
02 Dec 2013
TL;DR: The dark side of Utopia-dystopian accounts of places worse than the ones we live in-took its place in the narrative catalogue of the West and developed in several forms throughout the rest of the 20th century as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: In the twentieth century, the dark side of Utopia-dystopian accounts of places worse than the ones we live in-took its place in the narrative catalogue of the West and developed in several forms throughout the rest of the century.1 No doubt prompted by H. G. Wells’s science fictional visions of modernity, a number of other works-E. M. Forster’s story “The Machine Stops” and, more famously, works such as Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and George Orwell’s Nineteen EightyFour-came to represent the classical, or canonical, form of dystopia. In a more diffused manner, works that shared the cultural ambience of the dystopian imagination (though often with ambiguity or irony) appeared on the margins of mainstream literature. These include titles as diverse and contradictory as Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis (1915), Ayn Rand’s Anthem (1938), C. S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength (1945), Vladimir Nabokov’s Bend Sinister (1947), Evelyn Waugh’s Love among the Ruins (1953), and Don De Lillo’s Underworld (1997). In the direction of popular culture, a more overt dystopian tendency developed within science fiction (sf), and this resulted in the “new maps of hell,” as Kingsley Amis put it, that appeared after World War II and continues in the dystopian sf of recent years (by authors such as Ray Bradbury, Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth, Judith Merrill, A. E. Van Vogt, John Brunner, J. G. Ballard, Philip K. Dick, Thomas M. Disch, and James Tiptree Jr./Alice Sheldon). In all these instances, to a greater or lesser extent, the dystopian imaginationhas served as a prophetic vehicle, the canary in a cage, for writers with an ethical and political concern for warning us of terrible sociopolitical tendencies that could, if continued, turn our contemporary world into the iron cages portrayed in the realm of utopia’s underside.

30 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Apr 2013-History
TL;DR: The authors argued that since utopianism is commonly held to consist of three components, the literary utopia, utopian ideologies and communal movements, the term "utopia" should not describe only the first of these, the formal, literary genre, as is often the case, without addressing the other two, where utopian content is more central.
Abstract: This article argues that that since utopianism is commonly held to consist of three components, the literary utopia, utopian ideologies and communal movements, the term ‘utopia’ should not describe only the first of these, the formal, literary genre, as is often the case, without addressing the other two, where utopian content is more central. Nor can ‘dystopia’, which has usually been used to describe fictional negative societies. A ‘composite’ definition of both terms, however, addresses the three components as inherent to each concept. It is then contended that most utopias are linked by their commitment to a form of enhanced sociability, or more communal form of living, sometimes associated with ideals of friendship, while their dystopian counterparts are substantively connected by the predominance of fear, and the destruction of ‘society’, as a polar opposite of friendship. These definitions imply a spectrum of both utopian and dystopian plausibility; that is to say, where enhanced sociability has been maintained for some period, ‘utopia’ has existed, and where the opposite has occurred, as in totalitarianism, ‘dystopia’ can also be used to describe a real state of affairs. Providing a ‘realistic’ concept of both terms in relation to each other, however, raises some contentious issues about whether, for instance, dystopias are created intentionally, or whether dystopia ideologies as such exist. The article also attempts to distinguish between ‘utopic’ and ‘dystopic’ phenomena, and to plot a prehistory of the concepts of utopia and dystopia.

29 citations


Dissertation
01 Jan 2013
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose a methodology for the assessment of literary sources based on genre, arguing that names, and genre in turn, may be defined through their respective engagement with thematic considerations, providing a relevant critical structure by which to assess the application or construction of names within fiction.
Abstract: This research uses literary resources as evidence against the argument that names are potentially semantically meaningless entities. A secondary goal is to highlight and discuss the value of onomastics from both a literary and linguistic perspective. The thesis proposes a methodology for the assessment of literary sources based on genre, arguing that names, and genre in turn, may be defined through their respective engagement with thematic considerations, providing a relevant critical structure by which to assess the application or construction of names within fiction. The proposed methodology is first used to assess the placenames within dystopian literature, taking Orwell’s 1984 (1949), Huxley’s Brave New World (1931), and Zamyatin’s We (1924) as exemplar texts for the genre. The emblematic themes identified within the onymic patterns (propaganda, classification and regulation) all share a common thematic root: power and control. In order to assess the validity of this approach, the fictional worlds depicted in a selection of other dystopic texts are also examined. A special study is made of terrapsychology and fictional ontology, as well as of three distinct subgenres of the gothic. Case studies of the latter are each focused around a different ontological mode (fictional, part-fictional, and non-fictional placenames), covering the fantastic world of Peake’s Gormenghast setting (two texts published in 1946 and 1950), Lovecraft’s variant New England county (six texts, 1922 to 1936), and the representative contemporary setting of Brook’s World War Z (2006), respectively.

DOI
02 Dec 2013
TL;DR: For example, this article argued that the strongest and best function of Utopianism must be the exploration of alternatives in a way that supports or catalyzes social transformation, which is the main reason why I became interested in Utopias in the first place.
Abstract: Dear Lucy, 17 July 2001 You asked me to explain why I am so pessimistic about the possible role of Utopia in the contemporary world. The answer stems from the reason why I became interested in utopianism in the first place. I wanted, and still want, the world to be changed. Our current social arrangements condemn most of the world’s population to poverty and premature death, and subject even those of us who are very affluent to forms of alienation, repression, competition and separation from each other, which are incompatible with a fully human existence. I don’t believe this is necessary. So the strongest and best function of Utopia must be the exploration of alternatives in a way that supports or catalyzes social transformation.

DOI
02 Dec 2013
TL;DR: The Telling as discussed by the authors is the first full-length Hainish series novel in more than twenty years, and is a continuation of this collection in terms of both themes and genre.
Abstract: The Telling, the long-awaited new novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, is the first full-length Hainish series novel in more than twenty years. Prior to this, Le Guin had in fact written mostly short stories and novellas set in the Hainish universe, of which the most recent is Four Ways to Forgiveness. Her new novel is a continuation of this collection in terms of both themes and genre. Like Four Ways, The Telling is concerned with history and with the portrayal of a dystopian world. The novel also represents her first full-length exploration of dystopia since The Word for World Is Forest. Like that novella, it is,once again, a story of cultural contact, the kind of anthropological science fiction that is characteristic of Le Guin’s work. Like Word, the new novel deals with the survival of culture and is related to historical facts-the Vietnam War (Word) and the Cultural Revolution in China as well as the rise of religious and secular fundamentalism (Telling). Furthermore, they are both, more or less overtly, critical dystopias.2 But besides being a story of cultural contact, The Telling presents a quest for identity for its protagonist, one rooted in knowledge of history, memory, and acceptance of responsibilities. Given these themes, it is useful to read the novel in the context of the following debates: the relationship between the utopian genre, history, and memory; and the thorny issue of historical forgiveness. Any discussion of the past and memory, in fact, seems to be connected to the issue of reconciliation (reparation and/or compensation). Le Guin’s novel centers on such issues, and in the course of her narrative she provides insights into these themes, ultimately suggesting that if happiness and despair are the conditions of the citizens of utopia and dystopia, respectively, knowledge and awareness are those of the protagonists of the critical dystopia. And it is memory and the recovery of history that lead to this more open and critical condition.

Book
03 Mar 2013
TL;DR: Mulgan argues that the economic crisis also presents a historic opportunity to choose a radically different future for capitalism, one that maximizes its creative power and minimizes its destructive force as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The recent economic crisis was a dramatic reminder that capitalism can both produce and destroy. It's a system that by its very nature encourages predators and creators, locusts and bees. But, as Geoff Mulgan argues in this compelling, imaginative, and important book, the economic crisis also presents a historic opportunity to choose a radically different future for capitalism, one that maximizes its creative power and minimizes its destructive force. In an engaging and wide-ranging argument, Mulgan digs into the history of capitalism across the world to show its animating ideas, its utopias and dystopias, as well as its contradictions and possibilities. Drawing on a subtle framework for understanding systemic change, he shows how new political settlements reshaped capitalism in the past and are likely to do so in the future. By reconnecting value to real-life ideas of growth, he argues, efficiency and entrepreneurship can be harnessed to promote better lives and relationships rather than just a growth in the quantity of material consumption. Healthcare, education, and green industries are already becoming dominant sectors in the wealthier economies, and the fields of social innovation, enterprise, and investment are rapidly moving into the mainstream--all indicators of how capital could be made more of a servant and less a master. This is a book for anyone who wonders where capitalism might be heading next--and who wants to help make sure that its future avoids the mistakes of the past. This edition of The Locust and the Bee includes a new afterword in which the author lays out some of the key challenges facing capitalism in the twenty-first century.


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the literary genre known as dystopia is configured from the perspective of critical theory of society, as an analysis tool of radical modernity, and they present a brief description of what would such a literary genre, as well as three dystopian works to bring proof that argument.
Abstract: This paper seeks to argue that the literary genre known as dystopia is configured, from the perspective of critical theory of society, as an analysis tool of radical modernity. Therefore, there is a brief description of what would such a literary genre, as well as elect three dystopian works to bring proof that argument. Such works are: 1984, Orwell, Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury, and Brave New World, Huxley. Highlighting some of these characteristics, it is possible to shed light on the distinctive features of our contemporary.

DOI
11 Oct 2013
TL;DR: Since the late 1960s, a dark literature of emergency and despair has developed, expressing deep-rooted fears for the future of those children being addressed as discussed by the authors, and this genre has become characterized by extreme, arguably unprecedented, levels of anxiety and hopelessness.
Abstract: Since the late 1960s the futuristic fiction written for young readers has been disposed to make serious and disturbing comment on the likely direction of human civilization. During the 1970s and to the present day, a dark literature of emergency and despair has developed, expressing deep-rooted fears for the future of those children being addressed. As this dystopian genre has developed, its nightmarish imaginative landscapes have become increasingly intolerable, presenting a variety of repressive and tyrannically controlled states, whether writers conceive these as being neoprimitive or hypertechnological in essence. In the 1980s devastatingly bleak visions of the horrifying aftermath of nuclear war emerged, adding new levels of pessimism and concern about the future. Writers’ hypotheses about humankind’s likely lines of development have proved far from optimistic, and this large genre in children’s publishing has become characterized by extreme, arguably unprecedented, levels of anxiety and hopelessness.

Journal ArticleDOI
01 Jan 2013
TL;DR: In the US public schools, the most serious attack is being waged by advocates of neoliberalism whose reform efforts focus narrowly on high-stakes testing, traditional texts, and memorization drills as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Public education and higher education are under assault by a host of religious, economic, ideological, and political fundamentalists. This is true of the United States, but it is also increasingly true elsewhere. In US public schools, the most serious attack is being waged by advocates of neoliberalism whose reform efforts focus narrowly on high-stakes testing, traditional texts, and memorization drills. At the heart of this approach is an aggressive attempt to disinvest in public schools, replace them with charter schools, and remove state and federal governments completely from public education in order to allow education to be organized and administered by market-driven forces.[1] Left unchecked, this movement would turn schools into “simply another corporate asset bundled in credit default swaps” and valued only for its rate of exchange on the open market.[2] At the same time as public schools face such pressures, a full-fledged assault is being waged on higher education across North America, Australia and New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and other European countries. While the nature of the assault varies in each country, there is a common set of assumptions and practices driving the transformation of higher education into an adjunct of corporate power and values. The effects of the assault are not hard to discern. Universities are being defunded; tuition fees are skyrocketing; faculty salaries are shrinking as workloads are increasing; and part-time instructors are being used as a subaltern class of migrant laborers. In addition, class sizes are ballooning; the curriculum is being instrumentalized and stripped of liberal values; research is largely valued for its ability to produce profits; administrative staff is depleted; governance has been handed over to paragons of corporate culture; and valuable services are being curtailed. The neoliberal paradigm driving these attacks on public and higher education disdains democracy and views public and higher education as a toxic public sphere that poses a threat to corporate values, ideology, and power. Since the 1950s, colleges and universities have been seen by many to be democratic public spheres dedicated to teaching students to think critically, take imaginative risks, learn how to be moral witnesses, and procure the skills that enable one to connect to others in ways that strengthened the democratic polity. It is for these very reasons that higher education is increasingly under attack by the concentrated forces of neoliberalism. Self-confident critical citizens are viewed as abhorrent by conservatives who remember the campus turmoil of the sixties. Citizens who take their responsibility to democracy seriously now pose a dire threat to corporate power. Unsurprisingly, these same individuals daily face the suspicion of the new corporate university that appears willing to conceive of faculty only as entrepreneurs, students only as customers, and education only as a mode of training.[3] Welcome to the dystopian world of corporate education in which learning how to think, be informed by public values, and become engaged critical citizens are viewed as a failure rather than a mark of success. Instead of producing “a generation of leaders worthy of the challenges,”[4] the dystopian mission of public and higher education is to produce robots, technocrats, and compliant workers. There is more than a backlash at work in these assaults on public and higher education: there is a sustained effort to dismantle education as a pillar of democracy, public values, critical thought, social responsibility, and civic courage. Put more bluntly, the dystopian shadow that has fallen on public and higher education reveals the dark side of a counterrevolution that bespeaks not only an unfettered mode of corporate sovereignty but the emergence of an updated form of authoritarianism. During the Cold War, US officials never let us forget that authoritarian countries put their intellectuals into prison. While political Beyond Dystopian Education in a Neoliberal Society


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The relationship between good and evil and hope and despair in Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road is examined in this article, where the authors discuss how McCarthy's book is playing with opposites as its discourse contains elements of utopia as well as dystopia.
Abstract: This article examines the relationship between good and evil and hope and despair in Cormac McCarthy's novel The Road. It is a novel that tells a classical, almost mythical story and throughout its discourse it touches contrasting yet related opposites: it is the story of man against the elements, and it is a matter of life or death; not only the life and death of its individual characters but of humanity as such. The article discusses how McCarthy's novel is playing with opposites as its discourse contains elements of utopia as well as dystopia. External space, the natural physical world, constitutes a strong dystopian element, while inner space, the psychological inner life of the characters, constitutes a utopian element. In other words, the opposition between the land and the two main characters is the novel's discursive centre.

Book
01 Jan 2013
TL;DR: In this article, the future to predict the past is used to predict future prison population projections and the colonisation of penal Imagination, and the case of Electronically Monitored Control is discussed.
Abstract: Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors 1. Utopia and Its Discontents Margaret Malloch and Bill Munro 2. Crime, Critique and Utopian Alternatives Margaret Malloch 3. Utopia and Penal Constraint: The Frankfurt School and Critical Criminology Bill Munro 4. Erich Fromm: From Messianic Utopia to Critical Criminology Michael Lowy 5. Crime and Punishment In Classical and Libertarian Utopias Vincenzo Ruggiero 6. Visualising an abolitionist real utopia: principles, policy and praxis David Scott 7. Towards a Utopian Criminology Lynne Copson 8. Using the Future to Predict the Past: Prison Population Projections and the Colonisation of Penal Imagination Sarah Armstrong 9. Techno-Utopianism, Science Fiction and Penal Innovation: the case of Electronically Monitored Control Mike Nellis 10. From Penal Dystopia to the Reassertion of Social Rights Loic Wacquant


Book
01 Jan 2013
TL;DR: The Book of Legendary Lands as discussed by the authors is an illustrated tour of fabled places in literature and folklore that have awed, troubled, and eluded us through the ages, from the epic poets of antiquity to contemporary writers of science fiction, and from the authors of the Holy Scriptures to modern raconteurs of fairy tales.
Abstract: A fascinating illustrated tour of the fabled places in literature and folklore that have awed, troubled, and eluded us through the ages. From the epic poets of antiquity to contemporary writers of science fiction, from the authors of the Holy Scriptures to modern raconteurs of fairy tales, writers and storytellers through the ages have invented imaginary and mythical lands, projecting onto them all of our human dreams, ideals, and fears. In the tradition of his acclaimed History of Beauty, On Ugliness, and The Infinity of Lists, renowned writer and cultural critic Umberto Eco leads us on a beautifully illustrated journey through these lands of myth and invention, showing us their inhabitants, the passions that rule them, their heroes and antagonists, and, above all, the importance they hold for us. He explores this human urge to create such places, the utopias and dystopias where our imagination can confront things that are too incredible or challenging for our limited real world. Illuminated with more than 300 color images, The Book of Legendary Lands is both erudite and thoroughly enjoyable, bringing together disparate elements of our shared literary legacy in a way only Umberto Eco can. Homer s poems and other ancient and medieval texts are presented side by side with Gulliver s Travels and Alice in Wonderland; Tolkien shares space with Marco Polo s Books of the Marvels of the World; films complement poems, and comics inform novels. Together, these stories have influenced the sensibilities and worldview of all of us."

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors surveys utopian visions of Antarctica's future offered by literary texts in English and points out emergent patterns and repeated motifs within this subgenre, which can be seen as a source of hope in recent near-future fiction, although usually in an ambiguous manner.
Abstract: This article surveys utopian visions of Antarctica’s future offered by literary texts in English. The “metaphorics of opposition” associated with Antarctica’s South Polar location has made it a popular site for literary utopias for centuries. Since the time-displaced utopia (or euchronia) began to flourish in the late nineteenth century, numerous literary speculations on the future of the continent have appeared. The article points out emergent patterns and repeated motifs within this subgenre. In early temporal utopias, Antarctica provides welcome space for imperial expansion and resource exploitation. In the dystopian, post-apocalyptic fiction that burgeoned after the Second World War, its icescape functions as both a possible threat and a place of refuge. The continent can be a source of hope in recent near-future fiction, although usually in an ambiguous manner. Literary visions of a future Antarctica inevitably extrapolate problems and opportunities evident in their authors’ own times. They provide e...

Book
28 Dec 2013
TL;DR: In this article, a conversation with Zygmunt Bauman on metaphors, science versus art, fiction and other tricks of the trade is described, along with a discussion with Michael Hviid Jacobsen.
Abstract: Contents: Introduction: liquid sociology - what for?, Mark Davis Blurring genres: a conversation with Zygmunt Bauman on metaphors, science versus art, fiction and other tricks of the trade, Michael Hviid Jacobsen Bauman's challenge: metaphors and metaphormoses, Anthony Bryant Baumana (TM)s travels: metaphors of the token and the wilderness, Kieran Flanagan a "Welcome to the Hotel Californiaa (TM): Bauman and Virilio on utopia, dystopia, and globalisation, Mark Featherstone The Heineken effect: Bauman, Baudrillard and A1/2iA3/4ek as metaphorical thinkers of liquidity, Paul A. Taylor On the liquidity of evil: modernity and the dissolution of ethics in Baumana (TM)s social theory, Ross Abbinnett Strangers, a "othersa (TM) and the unstable metaphors of race representation in liquid modernity: the case of the gypsy weddings, Simon Weaver Risk, nichtwissen and fear: searching for solidity in liquid times?, Gabe Mythen and Sandra Walklate From a "solida (TM) producers and consumers to a "liquida (TM) prosumers, George Ritzer and P.J. Rey The question of a sociological poetics: metaphors, models and theory, Janet Wolff 'Metaphormosis: on the metaphoricity of Zygmunt Baumana (TM)s social theory, Michael Hviid Jacobsen Conclusion - liquid sociology, Peter Beilharz Index.

Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 2013
TL;DR: This paper read John Burnside's recent novel Glister as part of this project, as a work that, in the words of McClure, "maintains and revises a modernist tradition of spiritually inflected resistance to conventionally secular constructions of reality" (McClure, 1995, p. 144).
Abstract: In recent times, scholars have spoken of a ‘religious turn’ taking place in the humanities, including literary and cultural studies. They have done so in view of what is frequently seen as a very powerful contemporary resurgence of religion that seems to negate the validity of the secularisation thesis, in view of an increasing questioning and deconstruction of the established opposition between the secular and the religious itself, as well as of a general growing interest among critics and theorists in the topic of religion and spirituality. In 1995, John McClure, in his seminal discussion of American Postmodernism, argued that much of the writing from the 1960s onwards had to be read not as thoroughly secularised but, on the contrary, in terms of ‘a post-secular project of resacralization’ (McClure, 1995, p. 144). I want to read John Burnside’s recent novel Glister as part of this project, as a work that, in the words of McClure, ‘maintains and revises a modernist tradition of spiritually inflected resistance to conventionally secular constructions of reality’ (McClure, 1995, p. 143).

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argue that the continuation of neoliberal policies after the crash of 2008 is not an epistemological problem or a matter of false consciousness but an ontological problem, and that the reason we might continue with a system shown to be fatally flawed is because awareness of the flaw produces an experience of such anxiety that rather than face the issue head on and create an alternate world we find greater'security' in the attempt to rebuild the one that is broken.
Abstract: This essay addresses the issue of neoliberalism and knowledge from two distinct yet related perspectives. The first part argues that the continuation of neoliberal policies after the crash of 2008 is not an epistemological problem or a matter of false consciousness but an ontological problem. Using the work of Martin Heidegger the essay proposes the reason we might continue with a system shown to be fatally flawed is because awareness of the flaw produces an experience of such anxiety that rather than face the issue head on and create an alternate world we find greater 'security' in the attempt to rebuild the one that is broken. Secondly, neoliberalism has become increasingly dogmatic and is currently the only theory permissible. To this end the institution most closely tied to the production and distribution of knowledge, the university, has to be brought into the group-think that supports both plutocracy and oligarchy at the expense of democracy. Currently the only social institution questioning the truth of neoliberalism the university is increasingly being disciplined by customer service, internal competition and privatization in order to ensure conformity to market credo. The essay then closes by readdressing the importance of the university as a democratic counter to such dogma. It argues that the humanities in particular has always been a site for the contest of worldviews and theories of the human condition and facilitates an exposure to different ways of being-in-the-world that is essential if we are to challenge the systemic closure currently taking place.Keywords neoliberalism, knowledge, capitalism, idiotism, Heidegger, hermeneutics, university, dogmaOn 22 July 2009 economists Tim Besley and Peter Hennessy wrote a letter on behalf of the British Academy to the British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, attempting to answer her question as to why no one saw the 2008 financial crisis coming. Their conclusion that this failure was the result of a systemic lack of oversight 'combined with the psychology of herding and the mantra of financial and policy gurus' is highly revealing, as it counters many of the key tenets of the dogma that brought about the crash. Their conclusions are interesting because the reference to psychology raises the spectre of the 'animal spirits' that Keynes1 gave as a reason why markets could not be considered rational and ought not be left to regulate themselves. At the time Keynes was writing, because such an understanding of the human condition merited state intervention and a central role for public works, free-marketeers were required to strenuously and vigorously re-state their case by arguing that such spirits were merely the effect of a market that was not yet free enough.A similar refrain can be heard today. In keeping with all fundamentalisms neoliberals today insist that there was nothing wrong with what free-marketeers believed in; what were perceived to be problems with unregulated markets were in fact caused by the non-believers whose lack of faith prevented the full flowering of freedom and this alone explained the failure. Such advocates are often in thrall to the dystopian stories of Friedrich Hayek or the pseudo-science of Milton Friedman, if not the corporate porn of Ayn Rand, and believe it their duty to reach out to the invisible hand offered them by the prophet Adam Smith. Only this will guarantee the deliverance of humankind to the paradise which Friedman called the 'free private enterprise exchange economy'.2 Thus when the letter refers to 'gurus' we may infer that Besley and Hennessy were speaking about the financial priesthood that turned the entire global economy into a delusional cult that even in crisis continues to maintain its claims to truth. It should also be noted that the persistence of this particular brand of dogmatic thinking - the infallibility of markets and their extension through deregulation and privatisation - suggests that nothing has been learnt from the revelation that what economists believed they knew about the functioning of markets was entirely spurious. …

Book
28 Jun 2013
TL;DR: ChloA" Houston as mentioned in this paper discusses the use of piracy in the early modern Indo-Atlantic world in the context of Utopian Communities and Piracy in science-fiction.
Abstract: Contents: Introduction, ChloA" Houston Part1 Utopia and Knowledge: Rebuilding Solomon's temple: Richard Hakluyt's great instauration, David Harris Sacks Kepler's Somnium and Francis Godwin's The Man in the Moone: births of science-fiction 1593-1638, William Poole Utopia, millenarianism, and the Baconian programme of Margaret Cavendish's The Blazing World (1666), Line Cottegnies. Part 2 Utopian Communities and Piracy: 'The dream of Madagascar': English disasters and pirate utopias of the early modern Indo-Atlantic world, Kevin P. McDonald The uses of 'piracy': discourses of mercantilism and empire in Hakluyt's The Famous Voyage of Sir Francis Drake, Claire Jowitt Palmares: utopian representations of a runaway settlement in colonial Brazil, Analisa DeGrave. Part 3 Utopia and the State: Utopia and education in the 17th century: Bacon's Salomon's House and its influence, ChloA" Houston 'Atlantik and Eutopian polities': utopianism, republicanism and constitutional design in the Interregnum, Rosanna Cox Henry Nevill's The Isle of Pines: from sexual utopia to political dystopia, Daniel Carey Afterword, Andrew Hadfield Bibliography Index.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, a novel about human clones raised for organs, is most often critiqued as science fiction or dystopian literature by the scholarly community.
Abstract: Never Let Me Go , Kazuo Ishiguro's novel about human clones raised for organs, is most often critiqued as science fiction or dystopian literature by the scholarly community. Yet focusing on the institutional implementation of cloning obscures a more critically fertile theme: sentiment. As demonstrated in this article, the novel has deeper affinities with sentimental and abolitionist literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries than with speculative fiction. This generic reevaluation makes way for a broader critical approach to the novel's notion of humanness in the post-genome age.

Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 2013
TL;DR: The Carhullan Army can be seen as a proper attempt to imagine a possible and plausible future for the historical circumstances under which the author is writing as mentioned in this paper, in the future society depicted by Hall, one can identify an amplification of contemporary Britain, a dystopian portrayal of what it might become.
Abstract: In her article ‘Survivor’s Tale’ Sarah Hall, the author of The Carhullan Army (2007a), states that ‘[f]or its speculations to be taken seriously, dystopian fiction must be part of a discussion of contemporary society, or the wringing of present jeopardy for future disaster’ (Hall, 2007b). Raffaella Baccolini expresses a similar sentiment asserting that the function of dystopia ‘is to warn readers about the possible outcomes of our present world and entails an extrapolation of key features of contemporary society’ (2003, p. 115). The Carhullan Army can be seen as a proper attempt to imagine a possible and plausible future for the historical circumstances under which the author is writing. In the future society depicted by Hall, one can identify an amplification of contemporary Britain, a dystopian portrayal of what it might become, crippled by economic collapse, fighting resource wars and introducing increasingly draconian legislation to control a deteriorating domestic security situation, all set against a backdrop of escalating global warming and rising sea levels.