Showing papers on "Dystopia published in 2014"

The Breakthrough: Human Rights in the 1970s

Abstract: Chapter 1 The Return of the Prodigal: The 1970s as a Turning Point in Human Rights History -Samuel Moyn Chapter 2 The Dystopia of Postcolonial Catastrophe: Self-Determination, the Biafran War of Secession, and the 1970s Human Rights Moment -Lasse Heerten Chapter 3 The Disenchantment of Socialism: Soviet Dissidents, Human Rights, and the New Global Morality -Benjamin Nathans Chapter 4 Dictatorship and Dissent: Human Rights in East Germany in the 1970s -Ned Richardson-Little Chapter 5 Whose Utopia? Gender, Ideology, and Human Rights at the 1975 World Congress of Women in East Berlin -Celia Donert Chapter 6 "Magic Words": The Advent of Transnational Human Rights Activism in Latin America's Southern Cone in the Long 1970s -Patrick William Kelly Chapter 7 Shifting Sites of Argentine Advocacy and the Shape of 1970s Human Rights Debates -Lynsay Skiba Chapter 8 Oasis in the Desert? America's Human Rights Rediscovery -Daniel Sargent Chapter 9 Human Rights and the US Republican Party in the Late 1970s -Carl J Bon Tempo Chapter 10 The Polish Opposition, the Crisis of the Gierek Era, and the Helsinki Process -Gunter Dehnert Chapter 11 "Human Rights Are Like Coca-Cola": Contested Human Rights Discourses in Suharto's Indonesia, 1968-1980 -Brad Simpson Chapter 12 Why South Africa? The Politics of Anti-Apartheid Activism in Britain in the Long 1970s -Simon Stevens Chapter 13 The Rebirth of Politics from the Spirit of Morality: Explaining the Human Rights Revolution of the 1970s -Jan Eckel Notes List of Contributors Index Acknowledgments

Machines without Principals: Liability Rules and Artificial Intelligence

Abstract: INTRODUCTIONThe idea that humans could, at some point, develop machines that actually "think" for themselves and act autonomously has been embedded in our literature and culture since the beginning of civilization.1 But these ideas were generally thought to be religious expressions-what one scholar describes as an effort to forge our own Gods2-or pure science fiction. There was one important thread that tied together these visions of a special breed of superhuman men/machines: They invariably were stronger, smarter, and sharper analytically; that is, superior in all respects to humans, except for those traits involving emotional intelligence and empathy. But science fiction writers were of two minds about the capacity of super-smart machines to make life better for humans.One vision was uncritically Utopian. Intelligent machines, this account goes, would transform and enlighten society by performing the mundane, mind-numbing work that keeps humans from pursuing higher intellectual, spiritual, and artistic callings.3 This view was captured in the popular animated 1960s television show The Jetsons.4 As its title suggests, the show's vision is decidedly futuristic. The main character, George Jetson, lives with his family in a roomy, bright, and lavishly furnished apartment that seems to float in the sky. George and his family travel in a flying saucer-like car that drives itself and folds into a small briefcase. All of the family's domestic needs are taken care of by Rosie, the robotic family maid and housekeeper, who does the household chores and much of the parenting.5 George does "work." He is employed as a "digital index operator" by Spacely's Space Sprockets, which makes high tech equipment. George often complains of overwork, even though he appears to simply push buttons on a computer for three hours a day, three days a week.6 In other words, the Jetsons live the American dream of the future.In tangible ways, this Utopian vision of the partnership between humans and highly intelligent machines is being realized. Today, supercomputers can beat humans at their own games. IBM's "Deep Blue" can beat the pants off chess grand-masters, while its sister-super- computer "Watson" can clobber the reigning Jeopardy champions.7 But intelligent machines are more than show. Highly sophisticated robots and other intelligent machines perform critical functions that not long ago were thought to be within the exclusive province of humans. They pilot sophisticated aircraft; perform delicate surgery; study the landscape of Mars; and through smart nanotechnology, microscopic machines may soon deliver targeted medicines to areas within the body that are otherwise unreachable.8 In every one of these examples, machines perform these complex and at times dangerous tasks as well as, if not better than, humans.But science fiction writers also laid out a darker vision of intelligent machines and feared that, at some point, autonomously thinking machines would turn on humans. Some of the best science fiction expresses this dystopian view, including Stanley Kubrick's 1968 classic film 2001: A Space Odyssey.9 The film's star is not the main character, "Dave" (Dr. David Bowman, played by Keir Dullea), or "Frank" (Dr. Frank Poole, played by Gary Lockwood), who are astronauts on a secret and mysterious mission to Jupiter. Instead, the character who rivets our attention is HAL 9000,10 the all-knowing supercomputer who controls most of the ship's operations, but does so under the nominal command of the astronauts. The complexity of the relationship between man and the super-intelligent machine is revealed early in the film. During a pre- mission interview, HAL claims that he is "foolproof and incapable of error,"11 displaying human-like hubris. And when Dave is asked if HAL has genuine emotions, he replies that HAL appears to, but that the truth is unknown.12Once the mission begins, tensions between HAL and the astronauts start to surface. …

'Plus ca change, plus la meme chose': researching and theorising the new, new technologies

Abstract: Waves of ‘new technology’ have typically been accompanied by widespread speculation regarding their economic and social impacts. Most notably, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, computerisation and the microchip prompted cataclysmic predictions regarding their effects for employment. For example, the World Centre for Computer Sciences and Human Resources estimated that, by the end of the 1980s, as many as 50 million people would be displaced by new information and communication technologies (ICTs) (Braham, 1985, cited in Boreham et al., 2007: 3). In the aftermath of speculation on the ‘Information Revolution’, whether dystopian (Jenkins and Sherman, 1979) or utopian (Toffler, 1970), New Technology, Work and Employment was established as corrective and as a forum for theoretically informed, empirically grounded research on the impact of technological developments on work, employment and workplace social relations. In place of grand theorising, then, the journal set itself the more prosaic but robust social scientific objective of describing, mapping and analysing emerging realities.

Utopia/Dystopia: Conditions of Historical Possibility

Abstract: Utopia/Dystopia is an impressive collection of essays derived from a seminar at the Helby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies at Princeton. It is an attempt to think of the terms utopia and ...

Theoretical reflections on dystopian consumer culture: Black metal

Abstract: This article examines aspects related to the dystopic consumption and production of the musical and performance art form known as black metal. Steeped in anti-Christian motifs, surrounded by a history of violence and brutal imagery, black metal is an extreme metal art form that has been growing steadily in popularity throughout Europe, South America, and the United States. We first examine black metal culture through the eyes of both artists and consumers, using mixed qualitative methodologies. Thereafter, we derive specific theoretical interpretations from the black metal subculture that are predicated on the emerging themes of signification, identity transformation, xenophobia, and a reconstructed mythology that all point to what we present as a dystopian consumption model. The model demonstrates how dystopia, in context, is at the heart of the symbiotic relationship between consumers and producers and is encapsulated by a specific set of processes and overarching conditions. Implications and relationsh...

Female rebellion in young adult dystopian fiction

Abstract: Contents: Introduction From 'new woman' to 'future girl': the roots and rise of the female protagonist in contemporary young adult dystopias. Part I Reflections and Reconsiderations of Rebellious Girlhood: Girl power and girl activism in the fiction of Suzanne Collins, Scott Westerfeld, and Moira Young, Sonya Sawyer Fritz 'I'm beginning to know who I am': the rebellious subjectivities of Katniss Everdeen and Tris Prior, Miranda A. Green-Barteet Of Scrivens and Sparks: girl geniuses in young adult dystopian fiction, Rachel Dean-Ruzicka Docile bodies, dangerous bodies: sexual awakening and social resistance in young adult dystopian novels, Sara K. Day. Part II Forms and Signs of Rebellion: Gender rolls: bread and resistance in the 'Hunger Games' trilogy, Meghan Gilbert-Hickey Rebels in dresses: distractions of competitive girlhood in young adult dystopian fiction, Amy L. Montz The three faces of Tally Youngblood: rebellious identity-changing in Scott Westerfeld's 'Uglies' series, Mary Jeanette Moran 'Perpetually waving to an unseen crowd': satire and process in Beauty Queens, Bridgitte Barclay. Part III Contexts and Communities of Rebellion: Rebellious natures: the role of nature in young adult dystopian female protagonists' awakenings and agency, Megan McDonough and Katherine A. Wagner Real or not real - Katniss Everdeen loves Peeta Melark: the lingering effects of discipline in the 'Hunger Games' trilogy, June Pulliam The incompatibility of female friendship and rebellion, Ann M.M. Childs. Index.

Dystopia and disutopia: Hope and hopelessness in German pupils' future narratives

Abstract: Within the academic field of futures in education there has been concern that pupils’ negative and pessimistic future scenarios could be deleterious to their minds. Eckersley (Futures 31:73–90, 1999) argues that pessimism among young people can produce cynicism, mistrust, anger, apathy and an approach to life based on instant gratification. This article suggests that we need to discuss negative and pessimistic future visions in a more profound and complex way since these contain both hope and hopelessness. A pessimistic view of the future does not have to be negative in itself: it can also illustrate a critical awareness of contemporary social order. This article therefore aims to explore hope and hopelessness in young people’s dystopias about the future. Adopting dystopias may open up possibilities, whereas adopting disutopias will only lead one to believe that there are no alternatives to the current dominant model of global capitalism. Even a dystopia that predicts the end of the world as we know it might be the beginning of a world that we have not seen yet.

The Leisure Commons: A Spatial History of Web 2.0

Abstract: There is much excitement about Web 2.0 as an unprecedented, novel, community-building space for experiencing, producing, and consuming leisure, particularly through social network sites. What is needed is a perspective that is invested in neither a utopian or dystopian posture but sees historical continuity to this cyberleisure geography. This book investigates the digital public sphere by drawing parallels to another leisure space that shares its rhetoric of being open, democratic, and free for all: the urban park. It makes the case that the history and politics of public parks as an urban commons provides fresh insight into contemporary debates on corporatization, democratization and privatization of the digital commons. This book takes the reader on a metaphorical journey through multiple forms of public parks such as Protest Parks, Walled Gardens, Corporate Parks, Fantasy Parks, and Global Parks, addressing issues such as virtual activism, online privacy/surveillance, digital labor, branding, and globalization of digital networks. Ranging from the 19th century British factory garden to Tokyo Disneyland, this book offers numerous spatial metaphors to bring to life aspects of new media spaces. Readers looking for an interdisciplinary, historical and spatial approach to staid Web 2.0 discourses will undoubtedly benefit from this text.

Visions of Dystopia in China’s New Historical Novels

Abstract: Preface 1. Introduction: Chinese Visions of History and Dystopia2. Discomforts of Temporal Anomie3. Projections of Historical Repetition4. Alienation from the Group5. Anarchy: Social, Moral, and Cosmic6. Conclusion: The End of History, Dystopia, and "New" Historical Novels?List of Chinese CharactersNotesBibliography Index

The global sixties in sound and vision : media, counterculture, revolt

Abstract: 1. Red Noise: Pop and Politics in Post-1968 France Jonathyne Briggs 2. Mapping Tropicalia Christopher Dunn 3. Magical Mystery Tours: Godard and Antonioni in America David Fresko 4. Turning Inwards: The Politics of Privacy in the New American Cinema Joshua Guilford 5. Utopia and Dystopia in Science Fiction Films around 1968 Kathrin Fahlenbrach 6. "Musical & Magical Counterpoint': Language, Sound, and Image in Wallace Berman's Aleph, 1956-1966 Chelsea Behle Fralick 7. Guitar Smashing: Gustav Metzger, the Idea of Auto-destructive Works of Art, and Its Influence on Rock Music Wolfgang Kraushaar 8. "The Revolution is over - and we have won!': Alfred Hilsberg, West German Punk and the Sixties Jeff Hayton 9. The Sun and Moon Have Come Together: The Fourth Way, the Counterculture, and Capitol Records Kevin Fellezs 10. "A Weapon In Our Struggle For Liberation": Black Arts, Black Power, and the 1969 Pan-African Cultural Festival Samir Meghelli 11. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, but It Will Be Recorded: Soul, Funk, and the Black Urban Experience, 1968-1979 Francesca D'Amico 12. Jukebox Modernism: The Transatlantic Sight and Sound of Peter Blake's Got a Girl (1960-1961) Melissa L. Mednicov 13. Uninteresting Pictures: Art and Technocracy, 1968 Joshua Shannon 14. 1968 and the Future of Information Andrew Lison

Decoloniality of a special type: solidarity and its potential meanings in South African literature, during and after the Cold War

Abstract: This article addresses questions of solidarity in South African literature before and after the confluent endings of apartheid and the Cold War. Examining works by J. M. Coetzee, Nadine Gordimer and Alex La Guma, it highlights how solidarity as a theme has emerged in different forms and narrative settings, often tied to related considerations of utopia and dystopia. Alex La Guma’s travel memoir, A Soviet Journey (1978), is foregrounded in particular as a literary work examining this theme as well as symbolizing it through the Soviet Union’s support for the anti-apartheid struggle. The article concludes with a consideration of decolonial thought in Latin American studies as a contemporary set of conversations providing a potential intercontinental solidarity of the future.

Henthorne, Tom. Approaching the Hunger Games Trilogy: A Literary and Cultural Analysis

Abstract: Henthorne, Tom. Approaching The Hunger Games Trilogy: A Literary and Cultural Analysis. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2012. 200 pp. Paperback. ISBN: 978-0786468645. $40.00. Pharr, Mary F. and Leisa A. Clark. Of Bread, Blood, and The Hunger Games: Critical Essays on the Suzanne Collins Trilogy. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2012. 246 pp. Paperback. ISBN: 978-0786470198. $40.00. As popular excitement extends ever more rapidly to scholarly curiosity, the recent explosion of interest in young adult literature is no longer limited to the production of big-budget movies and record sales of associated merchandise. With many extant essay collections focused on Twilight (2005-2008) and Harry Potter (1997-2007), it is no wonder that Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games (2008-2010) trilogy now receives similar attention, and two recent books take on that task. Tom Henthorne's Approaching the Hunger Games Trilogy: A Literary and Cultural Analysis provides a single author's multifaceted take on the three novels, while Mary F. Pharr and Leisa A. Clark's Of Bread, Blood and The Hunger Games: Critical Essays on the Suzanne Collins Trilogy collects a variety of essays from professors, graduate students, and writers, each bringing their own approach to the texts. Though significant overlap exists between the two books' approaches and both would benefit from additional explanation and expansion of their claims, Pharr and Clark's larger volume of collected essays effectively discusses the trilogy from multiple perspectives while Henthorne's tighter configuration surprisingly produces a more fragmentary experience. After its preface and introductory materials, Approaching the Hunger Games Trilogy opens with a brief biography of Suzanne Collins and a discussion of the novels' creation, distribution, and reception, establishing interest in the impact of Collins's life on her books. Though this biographical attention recurs periodically, a media studies approach dominates the remainder of the book, with its first chapter, "Make of It What You Will," approaching the novels as part of the young adult literature phenomenon, and its eighth and final chapter, "Make of It What You Will (Remix)," discussing the books as a "digital text" (Henthorne 139). Between these bookends, Henthorne explores a variety of subjects, including transgressive gender presentations in chapter two, war stories and activism in chapter three, pragmatist ethics in chapter four, a return to media studies in chapter five's treatment of reality television, and a discussion of dystopian themes and survivor narratives in chapters six and seven, respectively. The book concludes with three appendices: two providing glossaries for terms and characters in the Hunger Games trilogy and a third offering questions for further study to readers of the trilogy, Collins's previous books, and the recently released film. The inclusion of study questions and the scope of topics under consideration suggest that the text might serve as an introduction to literary studies for trilogy readers unfamiliar with such approaches, and the casual style of Henthorne's prose confirms this. However, the text's short length forces foreshortened exploration of each theory or perspective, impacting the quality of engagement. Each chapter begins with an explanation of a particular concept and then relates it to the Hunger Games trilogy. Nearly every chapter effectively introduces its concepts with clever descriptions of the theoretical concept before exploring its role in the text. For example, in his chapter two discussion of gender roles, Henthorne informs the reader that "[understood in this way, it is easy to see how gender identities can be destabilized and subverted when they are performed in ways other than those prescribed by society" (46), invoking Judith Butler efficiently. He builds on this base to make some very interesting claims about Collins's novels, in particular noting that during Katniss's rise as a tribute, "she quickly learns that performing traditional forms of femininity is essential to her survival, and so she cooperates with Cinna and his team . …

The 'Lamb of Comstock’: dystopia and religion in video games

Abstract: In the article ‘‘The Lamb of Comstock’. Dystopia and Religion in Video Games’ I will introduce four high quality, commercially successful videogames: Bioshock, Bioshock Infinite, Dishonored and Brink . All these four games present a dystopian scenery as a background for an intelligent plot to criticizes distinct modern political, philosophical and economical theories and practices: respectively the ‘hyper-capitalism’ of the Russian-American philosopher Ayn Rand, the idea of religion based American Exceptionalism, idealized industrialization and rationalism, and an ecological Apocalypse. Within these four games, religion – primarily different branches of Christianity – plays an important but often implicit role in the game narrative, sometimes supporting the dystopian scenery of the game, sometimes opposing it. In this article I will give a definition of the difficult term ‘dystopia’, introduce the four dystopian video games and demonstrate the importance of religion within the four game narratives.

Masses, Forces, and the Urban Sublime

Abstract: The Realization of Multitudinous Humanity Observers of the urban scene in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century fiction are recurrently confronted with what the American novelist Robert Herrick called "the realization of multitudinous humanity": the city defeats their powers of perception. In William Dean Howells’s A Hazard of New Fortunes (1890), this experience is triggered by masses of immigrants. Gazing from an elevated train in Manhattan, upper-middle-class editorialist Basil March discovers slum dwellers with disquieting features - "small eyes,… high cheeks,… broad noses,… cue-filleted skulls." As Basil’s ethnic cliches cannot keep up with this diversity, he seeks comfort in Social Darwinist generalities; the streets, he ventures, are ruled by the "play of energies" in "the fierce struggle for survival." If Howells’s urban observer dared to immerse himself into the crowd, he would likely share the plight of Avis Everhard, the heroine of Jack London’s dystopia The Iron Heel (1908), whose perceptual distress is compounded with disgust and terror. Trapped in a riot of the Chicago underclass, Avis must thread her way through the "awful river" of a subhuman mob made up of "carnivorous… apes and tigers, anaemic consumptives and great hairy beasts of burden." In other texts, the object of urban dread is industry. French science-fiction pioneer Jules Verne’s The Begum’s Fortune (1879) features gothic depictions of a city designed by German gun manufacturers: Stahlstadt is "a dark mass, huge and strange," whose "forest of cylindrical chimneys… vomit forth clouds of dense smoke." Likewise, north England towns in Benjamin Disraeli’s Sybil, Or the Two Nations (1845) are "wilderness[es] of cottages… interspersed with blazing furnaces." For Emile Zola, steam engines in coal mines are "vile beast[s]… gorged on human flesh." American investigative journalist Rebecca Harding Davis called manufacturing towns the "Devil’s place." This nightmarish apparatus of production sustains economic processes beyond human measure. American novelist Frank Norris’s The Octopus (1901) and The Pit (1903) map the gigantic economic traffic whereby wheat is produced and exchanged. Harvested from the "Titan" earth, wheat unleashes speculation frenzies displaying the "appalling fury of the Maelstrom." At the far end of these economic chains, Zola’s The Ladies’ Paradise (1881) and Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie (1900) examine how customers fare in the urban market. In newly built department stores, Zola’s and Dreiser’s shoppers experience the "drag of desire" exerted by commodities with untraceable origins.

Peak Oil Imagining in Cormac McCarthy's The Road and Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl

Abstract: Peak oil discourse has become increasingly prevalent as a trope within contemporary speculative fiction. Cultural and political anxieties regarding the possibility of oil's waning availability as a...

The Cultural Imaginary of the Internet: Virtual Utopias and Dystopias

Abstract: Contemporary culture offer contradictory views of the internet and new media technologies, painting them in extremes of optimistic enthusiasm and pessimistic concern This book explores such representations, uncovering the roots of our cultural responses to the internet, centred upon a profoundly ambivalent reaction to technological modernity

Da centralidade política à centralidade do corpo transumano: movimentos da terceira virada distópica na literatura

Abstract: Much has been discussed the political character of dystopian novels of the so-called second turn (from the end of the 19th century to the 1950s), which are seen especially as forms of strong critique to totalitarian political regimes. However, a new trend of dystopian novels, over the past 30 years, have discussed the impact of the desire created by late Capitalism over the transfiguration of the body, which has been central to the construction of post-human and transhuman ideas. This paper aims at discussing the changes found in dystopian literatures in English throughout the 20th century in order to propose a third dystopian turn in literature, from the writings of Fredric Jameson about science fiction and utopia, in the last 30 years, centering on the multiple transfigurations of the body created from the imposition of desire by late Capitalism and its impact on the post-human and transhuman modes of thought. To do so, a number of examples from novels belonging to such a trend are briefly discussed in order to create a critical panorama to support the proposal.

Ruin memory: Havana beyond the revolution

Abstract: This article defines ruin memory and offers a literary history of special period Havana, read, diagnosed, and represented with curiosity, wonder, and critique in a debate over utopia versus dystopia. Through an examination of the fictional, pedestrian movement of characters such as Victorio in Abilio Estevez’s Los palacios distantes and Usnavy in Achy Obejas’ Ruins, this text traces how the city is survived by locals, exoticized by tourists, and reconstructed by the imagination. Ruin memory asks us to think about the ruins and those living in them in terms of present and evacuated subsistence. This, in the end, is more than a depiction of the past or what has been lost. As we can see through the character development of Victorio and Usnavy, at issue is an urgent present in which all are struggling not just to live, but to live a better life through the discovery of relics and legends within the ruins.

Emerging Themes in Dystopian Literature: The Development of an Undergraduate Course

Abstract: Young adult (YA) dystopian literature is a trend that is taking the nation by storm. Since September 11, 2001, the genre has gained a strong backing from academics, authors, and YA readers; after Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games (2008), however, YA dystopian literature has become the forefront of teen reading, especially with the recently adapted film versions of the widely renowned trilogy. In order to keep up with the times, a proposed course—YA Dystopian Literature: A Survey of Modern Book Series—has been created to be taught at Western Michigan University by Dr. Gwen Tarbox in the spring of 2015. Before the course could be developed, it was necessary to understand the term “dystopia,” recognize how YA dystopian literature has evolved from mainstream adult dystopian literature, and acknowledge the themes and trends that have emerged from the genre. In order to create the course, a study of previous dystopian literature classes was completed and the results are discussed. A brief explanation of the target audience is provided, along with an extensive rationale behind the learning objectives, text selections, in-class exercises and discussion questions, and other assignments. After the conclusion, which details the need for such a collegelevel course, the course syllabus is included in the appendix.

Russian Experimental Fiction: Resisting Ideology after Utopia

Abstract: Preface and AcknowledgmentsNote on Transliteration and TranslationList of AbbreviationsPt. 1Experimental Fiction Against Ideological FixationCh. 1Meta-utopian Writing: The Problem of Utopia as Ideology3Ch. 2Publishing the Dystopian Heritage: The Glasnost Debate about Literary Experiment and Utopian Ideology25Pt. 2The Meta-Utopian Experiment in Fiction: Elements of Literary and Ideological ReanimationCh. 3Charting Meta-utopia: Chronotopes of Disorientation41Ch. 4Science, Ideology, and the Structure of Meta-utopian Narrative70Ch. 5The Meta-utopian Language Problem, or Utopia as a Bump on a -log-94Ch. 6Meta-utopian Consciousness122Pt. 3The Reader in the Text: Popularizing the Meta-Utopian MentalityCh. 7Making Meta-utopia Accessible: Zinoviev's The Radiant Future145Ch. 8Utopia, Imagination, and Memory: The Strugatsky Brothers' The Ugly Swans, Tendriakov's A Potshot at Mirages, and Aksenov's The Island of Crimea162Ch. 9Parody of Popular Forms in Iskander's Rabbits and Boa Constrictors and Voinovich's Moscow 2042183Ch. 10Play with Closure in Petrushevskaia's "The New Robinsons" and Kabakov's "The Deserter"198Conclusion: The Utopian Impulse after 1968: Russian Meta-utopian Fiction in a European Context208Bibliography223Index233

Black Mirror: el reflejo oscuro de la sociedad de la información

Abstract: This article analyzes the content of the six episodes released from the British mini-series Black Mirror . This series examines, from a sociological perspective, the influence of current technology in the society, projecting their present implications into the future. The analysis of the images and ideas of Black Mirror offers a dystopian vision of the contemporary use of the technological development, presenting a society immersed in a process of virtualization in which reality is consumed as spectacle. The society offered in Black Mirror represents a metaphor of the current society, exploring the potential changes in communication, sociability and morality. The ideas reflected in Black Mirror are, on the other hand, coincident with the thought expressed by authors such as Baudrillard, Žižek, Castells or Sartori, who analyzed the social and cultural changes that the use of new technologies are producing in the present and those that may take place in the future.

Cormac McCarthy and the Writing of American Spaces

Abstract: Estes, Andrew Keller. Cormac McCarthy and the Writing of American Spaces. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2013. 239 pp. Paperback. $70. ISBN 9789042036291.Review by O. Alan NobleAndrew Keller Estes' new book reveals the usefulness of environmental criticism for reading Cormac McCarthy's novels. His central argument is that McCarthy's later works present a dialectic vision of nature as either utopian or dystopian without privileging either vision. A synthesis of these perspectives comes out occasionally: "some of McCarthy's texts hint at a new way forward, an escape from traditional ways of conceiving space and a better approach to environment" (16). Estes describes this as a "biocentric" map: "an egalitarian view of nature in which all members of the ecosphere have intrinsic rights" (41). As an introduction to trends in environmental criticism and their applications to contemporary literature, Estes' book is insightful. His application of this criticism to McCarthy's novels varies in effectiveness. Interpreting the voices in the novels within the framework of environmental criticism generally is helpful for situating McCarthy in the larger movement of modernity and its relationship to environments. The most daring claim of the book, that McCarthy offers a "new way forward," is regrettably less persuasive than it could be. Despite this deficiency, Estes has contributed a notable addition to McCarthy scholarship. His book will be an essential text for any scholars who wish to consider McCarthy and environmental criticism.Estes begins by presenting providing some theoretical context for environmental criticism and the American tradition of writing about nature, and then presents a survey of McCarthy scholarship. For readers who are new to this movement, the chapter on environmental criticism chapter will be particularly helpful. Estes lays out a brief survey of the important literature surrounding the major binaries that define environmental criticism (space/place, nature/culture, wilderness/civilization, etc.) and then connects that terminology to McCarthy's later works. In his second chapter, Estes gives a rich survey of the tradition in American literature of writing nature either in strongly positive or strongly negative terms. Estes traces each of these trends through American history, from the Edenic vision of Columbus and the demonic vision of Vespucci through the the utopian perspectives of Crevecoeur, Jefferson, and Emerson. Finally, Estes surveys McCarthy scholarship in general and choses three articles to focus on that pertain more closely to his thesis. Much of this survey feels extraneous to his argument. Of note is his treatment of John Cant's article on The Road included in Bloom's Modern Critical Views: Cormac McCarthy. Disappointingly, Estes chides Cant's reading of the "roadmap" as a metaphor for McCarthy's "literary past" (96). Estes objects because Cant "fails to point out that it is an oil company roadmap, something which implies a very specific view of nature" (96). It is unclear why Estes expects Cant to perform the same ecocritical reading of McCarthy as himself. Overall the theoretical half of Cormac McCarthy and the Writing of American Spaces is insightful, although the reader may wish he had opted to devote more space to his close readings.Estes starts his close reading with Blood Meridian, asserting that the novel interrogates and unsettles several binaries. An example of this is the collapse of the wilderness/civilization distinction in the scalp hunters (114). Estes reads the environments as largely reflecting the negative view of nature in American literature. Seemingly in line with this evil world, Estes interprets the judge as a caricature of the enlightenment belief that the earth is a wilderness that we must subdue and enslave. The judge's view of nature is challenged by the consequences of western expansion and the slaughter of the American buffalo. By showing the destructive, logical conclusion to "mastering nature" Blood Meridian encourages readers to rethink their relationship with nature, according to Estes. …

The desire for fullness. The fantasmatic logic of modernization discourses in the turn of the 19th century in Łódź

Abstract: The tension inherent in the desire to be modern appeared with all its strength in the discourses surrounding an alien, rapidly developing industrial center in the middle of the rural Kingdom of Poland – the city of Łodź,. In this article, I attempt to reconstruct the logic of press and reportage discourses dealing with this new experience. The press, reportage, and literary discourses concerning the newly established locus of modernity – the city of Łodź – reveal the work of ideological fantasy, a logic of discourse in reportages, essays and novels describing an imaginary diagnosis of reality and a fantasy about its utopian version, as well as the obstacles which always prevent the fulfillment of utopia and even threaten it with a more horrific dystopian vision. Still, the clue lies in the obstacle itself, which is at one and the same time the foundation allowing any utopian project to appear at all, as well a vision of reality.

Soccer and social identity in contemporary German film and media

Abstract: This dissertation analyzes a selection of German soccer films that construct imaginations of German social identity through the populism and simplicity of soccer. These expressions of German identity do not revert to nostalgic, static social identities based on the exclusivity of national or ethnic heritage. Instead, these films frame German identity in the 21st century circumstances of transcultural exchange, cosmopolitan empathy, and pan-European social movements. I argue that examining the social theories and movements of multiculturalism, feminism, and soccer subcultures provides for a more contemporarily informed reading of the connection between soccer-related media and social identity than reverting back to historical forms of German social identity and misreading German soccer fandom as the reemergence of xenophobic nationalism. The intersection of soccer and film produces a particular sort of social commentary. Soccer functions as a filmic narrative tool that guides social commentary to a simplified world of dualities: winners vs. losers, us vs. them, or the political right vs. the left. I describe the narrative structure of soccer, film, and social commentary with statement theory: a structuralist method of examining “statements,” which are the culmination of the filmic form, socio-cultural context, and utopic or dystopic visions of society. I argue that the filmic soccer narrative dictates social commentary into utopic or dystopic statements; statements of idealism that necessarily project a social wish or fear into the future, even if that utopia or dystopia is cinematically depicted in an imagined now. The multicultural, post-multicultural, dystopic, and post-dystopic statements are short forms of narratively and visually mediating social identity.

Sex in Utopia: Eutopian and Dystopian Sexual Relations

Abstract: In this article we explore two sex-related questions. First, what have the authors of utopias and dystopias said about sexual behavior and relationships in their works? In examining this question, we seek to identify different modes of sexual behavior or relationships that have been presented as characterizing the good or bad society. Second, what is the role of sex in utopia and dystopia? Is there a sexual element of how to get from here to there? Can changes in sexual behavior and relationships help bring about the good society? In order to explore these questions we consult a large number of primary sources, and our discussion begins with a broad-brush survey that establishes some early norms and variations from the canon of utopian thought. Two recurrent themes emerge from this survey: the first concerns a tripartite relation- ship among sex, sexuality, and gender. The second concerns sex and control. Both themes reinforce key modes of sexual behavior, which are explored in the final section of the article, where we undertake a deeper consideration of sample texts from three authors: Marge Piercy, Robert Rimmer, and Alex Comfort. ke ywords: utopia, eutopia, d ystopia, se x, se xual relationships

Locating Science Fiction

Abstract: In the Provinces of the Mode. Andrew Milner. Locating Science Fiction. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2012. 244 pp. ISBN 9781846318429. £70 he.Reviewed by Chris PakThe project of defining science fiction has been central to popular and theoretical engagement with the mode in both fan communities and sf scholarship. In Locating Science Fiction Andrew Milner considers some of the most significant approaches to this issue, outlining their assumptions and methods to provide an alternative conception of what he describes as sf's cultural field. Milner asks four fundamental questions: "what, positively, was SF? what, negatively, wasn't it? when was it? and, finally, where was it?" (178). These questions address the central activity of his work: the attempt to situate the cultural productions grouped under the category of sf in terms of geography, time, and tradition. Heavily influenced by Ernst Bloch and Raymond Williams, Milner addresses the skepticism directed at theoretical argumentation embodied by that period of 1980s "high theory," carefully deploying and synthesizing a range of approaches in order to better understand and explain the empirical phenomenon that is sf.This slim volume addresses four broad areas. Questions of genre and form are tackled in the bulk of its nine chapters. Chapters one through four address the notion that sf is a literature that pivots between Stephen Greenblatt's resonance and wonder. These are titled "Memories of Dan Dare," "Sf and Selective Tradition" (a concept derived from Raymond Williams' cultural materialism), "Sf and the Cultural Field," and "Radio Sf and the Theory of Genre." Chapters five and six, "Sf, Utopia and Fantasy" and "Sf and Dystopia," focus on what Milner concludes are forms cognate with sf but which are often confused as a species of sf. Chapters one through six, therefore, address definitions of sf. Chapters seven and eight, "When Was Sf?" and "Where Was Sf?," take up the task of situating sf temporally and geographically. In the last chapter, "The Uses of Sf," Milner underscores the importance of sf and the significance of two specific works of Australian sf. By extension, he makes a case for other under-represented Australian works, foregrounding one of the most pressing questions in contemporary society: the physical and social impact of climate change.Locating Science Fiction begins and ends biographically, a strategy that Milner uses to position himself in relation to debates over the status of the sf mode. It expands outward from the biographical to the theoretical and contracts again in the closing chapter. It begins with memory and archive, with Milner's reflection on his own exposure to sf in the UK when he was young, and ends with the completion of the writing of his manuscript. This journey is significant in that Milner's location in Australia exposes him directly to the effects of climate change in the form of unprecedented meteorological events and flooding. Thus his early reception of sf (and his relationship to it as a consumer, fan, and scholar) functions as a springboard for his theoretical discussion of issues of genre and form.In "Memories of Dan Dare," Milner surveys his early engagement with sf as a young reader, highlighting the multi-form nature of sf in television, film, comics, radio, novels, and short stories. Milner critiques Ken Gelder's separation of popular and literary writing and his identification of sf as a popular form, arguing that the literary/popular binary is "an artefact of literary modernism" (14). Milner follows Raymond Williams' division of cultural form into "modes," "the deepest level of form" that include such categories as "dramatic" and "narrative"; "genres," "relatively persistent instances of each mode" such as tragedy and comedy; and "types," such as modernism and romance (12). Milner builds on these initial distinctions throughout the text, but moves on in this chapter to discuss how Dan Dare operates through the dual application of resonance and wonder, terms derived from Greenblatt's Learning to Curse (1990). …

Being-in-the-World in the Global Age: Marginal Spaces as Alternative Places in the Belgian–Moroccan Transnational Cityscape of Les Barons

Abstract: Europe's immigrant populations are often represented on screen by both European and immigrant filmmakers as marginalized in the violent neighborhoods of peripheral urban areas in Paris, Lyon, London, and elsewhere. The film Les Barons (Nabil Ben Yadir, 2009) seeks to counter such stereotypes. The protagonists of Les Barons are multilingual, multicultural young men with proud ties to their families and the ability, at the same time, to straddle cultural registers and global perspectives as they live their cosmopolitan Dasein, or "Being-in-the-world."Resume: Les populations immigrees en Europe sont souvent representees a l'ecran par des cineastes europeens et immigrants comme marginalisees et habitant les quartiers violents des peripheries urbaines de Paris, Lyon, Londres et ailleurs. Le film Les Barons (Nabil Ben Yadir, 2009) cherche a lutter contre de tels stereotypes. Les protagonistes de Les Barons sont des jeunes hommes multilingues et multiculturels, fiers et soudes a leurs familles en meme temps qu'ils vivent entre plusieurs registres culturels et perspectives mondiales qui les amenent a leur Dasein cosmopolite, ou leur "etre-dans-le-monde."Key Words: Being-in-the-world; Moroccan literature; Maghrebi; Francophone; postcolonialThe Moroccan-Belgian filmmaker Nabil Ben Yadir offers a fresh and interesting look at ethnic identity in urban neighborhoods in his 2009 film, Les Barons. In this article, I argue that Ben Yadir depicts the urban environments of North African communities, and particularly the youth who inhabit them, as realities for exploring a new way of being that trumps stereotypical labels so often used in past cinematic portrayals.1 In this film (as well as in his more recent film La Marche [2013], which this article does not cover), Ben Yadir engages with the "tensions that exist at cultural dividing points" between European and "Other" (Nwosu 2011:22). Urban settings for films about non-European communities are perfect backdrops for challenging the perceived European cultural homogeneity that has been increasingly the principal platform of right-wing political parties. These parties have traditionally used anti-immigrant ideology as grounds for supporting hardline ideas about nationhood and nationalism that seem incongruous in today's multicultural societies.^ In Les Barons, the young protagonists explore "other sites of meaning" (Nwosu 2011:22) that challenge Euro-centered, white (and often hyper-masculinized) discourse in order to generate and assemble different ways of thinking about themselves and their relationship to others, otherness, alterity, and identity in the transnational, global spaces of our era.Contemporary cinema set in urban spaces has become the ideal medium through which to study the transnational cityscape as a source of both inspiration and despair for immigrants found within its limits. The "nexus cinema-city" as trope, explains Mark Shiel in his introduction to the volume Cinema and the City: Film and Urban Societies in a Global Context, inspires filmmakers to depict the city on the screen as either dystopia or a place offering limitless potential. The cinema-city provides "a rich avenue for investigation and discussion of key issues which ought to be of common interest in the study of society and ... culture" (2001:2). According to Shiel, the convergence of the city-trope with the film medium allows "the relationship between culture and society [to be fully explored], particularly in what is now commonly referred to as the current global postmodern social and cultural context." The city is a "window onto power relationships and societal transformations in the contexts of'modernity,' 'industrialism' and, in the case of the 21st century, globalized 'postmodernity'" (2001:2).The Western European transnational cityscape for many "MRE" (Marocains residents a l'etranger/Moroccans residing abroad) filmmakers is a location for exploring how the North African Francophone individual's "Being-in-the-world" is shaped by globalization and transnational encounters. …

South African end times: Conceiving an apocalyptic imaginary

Abstract: The future of South Africa has most commonly been conceived as a prospective apocalyptic upheaval in which the nation fractures along race lines. This expectation preceded, but informed the rise of apartheid, and has accompanied its demise. This article argues that catastrophic prediction—the trope of a looming racial Armageddon—is like a worn coin: familiar currency so often spent. Nonetheless, we need to conceive how this particular political theology settled into our polity; why it has proved so adaptable (through and despite the “miraculous” transformation of 1994); and, how its tenacity—which is politically anodyne at best and fascist at worst—might be challenged. The article conceives of a study (comprising nine essays) which sets out to analyze aspects of this history of fear, without simply taking its existence and persistence for granted. Keywords: South African apocalypse, catastrophism, dystopia, political theology, white fear.