Topic
Dystopia
About: Dystopia is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2146 publications have been published within this topic receiving 15163 citations. The topic is also known as: cacotopia.
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31 Jan 2018
TL;DR: A new kind of utopian text emerged in the 1980s and 1990s: the critical dystopia as discussed by the authors, which replaced perfectionism with ambiguity and self-reflection in speculative literature by turning from utopia to dystopia.
Abstract: The 20th century demonstrated that the realization of utopian plans often fosters totalitarianism. Fantastic, speculative literature mirrored this by turning from utopia to dystopia. In the hopeful 1970s, critical utopian texts revived the hope for a better world in a more complex fashion that replaced perfectionism with ambiguity and self-reflection. But neo-liberalism prevailed and other utopian hopes declined again. But a new kind of utopian text emerged in the 1980s and 1990s: the critical dystopia. Novels like Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Gold Coast (1988), Marge Piercy’s He, She and It (1991), and Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower (1993) depict horrible capitalist dystopian societies that almost crush the emancipatory hopes of resistance groups. But their utopian desire is not completely futile. This glimpse of hope also characterizes ambiguously utopian science fiction texts of the new millennium, e.g. Chris Carlsson’s After the Deluge (2004), Neal Stephenson’s Anathem (2008), and Margaret Killjoy’s A Country of Ghosts (2014).
5 citations
01 Jan 2008
5 citations
TL;DR: The authors argued that although the bulk of V for Vendetta can be understood as dystopian, because it ends with a utopian vision, and because that vision is a promise not a warning, it is in fact a utopian work that calls for a utopian anarchist revolution.
Abstract: Drawing on genre definitions of utopia, eutopia and dystopia, this article argues that although the bulk of V for Vendetta can be understood as dystopian, because it ends with a utopian vision, and because that vision is a promise not a warning, V for Vendetta is in fact a utopian work that calls for a utopian anarchist revolution. It does not dismiss the utopian impulse, but praises it, and it is in this utopian mode – as a utopian work – that V for Vendetta must finally be understood.
5 citations