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.

The temporal displacement of utopia and dystopia in feminist speculative fiction

Abstract: Feminist speculative fiction authors make frequent use of the defamiliarized context of utopian and dystopian worlds in order to explore various gender-related issues. The article discusses the use of the temporal dimension of the setting of these texts. The choice of a futuristic setting and correlating it with either utopia or dystopia helps authors to interrogate the present, as it allows not only for extrapolation regarding the future, but also for an assessment of the extratextual present from an imagined historical perspective. It creates a narrative space for comparing and contrasting different social realities, with time serving as a lens which facilitates this analysis. Such a narrative choice creates the desired effect of defamiliarization, enhancing the reader’s cognition and, consequently, raising an awareness regarding issues which are central to feminist philosophy and relevant to the contemporary social situation of women.

Welcome to Amerizona - Immigrants Out: Assessing Dystopian Dreams and Usable Futures of Immigration Reform, and Considering Whether Immigration Regionalism is an Idea Whose Time Has Come

Abstract: In this essay, we introduce the heuristics of "dystopian dream" and "usable future" to assess competing visions for immigration reform. We apply these heuristics to potential changes to the U.S. immigration system and immigration federalism as reflected in legislative and law enforcement activities, policy proposals, speeches, and scholarship. We consider President Obama's recent revival of Emma Lazarus's "The New Colossus" and aspects of the Schumer/Graham blueprint for comprehensive reform alongside the dystopian dream of immigration reform reflected in Arizona's S.B. 1070 and other state- and local-level efforts to regulate both immigrants and immigration. We also consider side-by-side recent work on immigration and localism and comprehensive immigration reform by urban futurist Joel Kotkin and immigration law professor Dean Kevin Johnson, respectively. In addition to providing valuable insights on the relationship between immigration and economic, social, and cultural dynamism and the prospective parameters of much-needed "truly comprehensive" reform, their work illustrates the ambivalent attitudes about localism within contemporary immigration policy debates, even amongst those who emphasize the fundamentally economic and labor-driven forces behind immigration today. Our bottom line recommendation is that immigration policy formulation and implementation occur on a regional basis, federally created with strong federal oversight and without constitutional disruption of immigration federalism. What we call "immigration regionalism" would move debate beyond the state power versus federal power question that has taken center stage with the Rehnquist Court's so-called "New Federalism." Acting pursuant to the Commerce Clause, the Supremacy Clause, and foreign policy objectives, the federal government would create immigration regions and a governance structure that incorporates representatives of state and local governments, as well as private sector and civil society groups. The regional units would gather and assess data and formulate policy recommendations. In this way, immigration regionalism would split the difference between a purely federal approach and a subnational one as exemplified by states like Arizona and municipalities like Hazleton, Pennsylvania, wherein legislators take dangerous, overreaching self-help measures. An "immigration regionalism" would also feature core commitments and principles and promote salutary outcomes that bring together what is best in Kotkin's and Johnson's respective "usable futures" and that resonates with recent important work on equitable regionalism and rethinking immigration federalism. TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract Introduction I. "Dystopian Dreams"--"Amerizona" and Reviving "The New Colossus"? II. What Is a "Usable Future" and How Is It Relevant to Immigration Reform? III. Envisioning "Usable Futures"--Kotkin's Immigration-Friendly "New Localism" and Johnson's "Blueprint" for Comprehensive Immigration Reform A. Kotkin's Immigration-Friendly "New Localism" B. Johnson's "Blueprint" for Comprehensive Immigration Reform IV. Toward an "Immigration Regionalism" Concluding Remarks: Which Is The Way Forward? INTRODUCTION "Welcome to Amerizona--Immigrants Out!" (1) We use the phrase "Amerizona" to describe a state of internal disorder represented by Arizona's recently passed S.B. 1070, as well as the flurry of state and local law-making pertaining to undocumented immigrants and immigration reform. We also use it to illustrate one of many possible futures for states, municipalities, and the entire nation so that we may ask the question: is this the future of immigration reform and of American society in this century? In this essay, we introduce the heuristics of "dystopian dream" and "usable future" to assess multiple, competing and contradictory visions of our "immigration future" that are colliding in our lawmaking bodies and in the popular imagination. …

How Far From a 19th Century Flâneur? A Female Urban Walker in Paul Auster’s In the Country of Last Things Abstract

Abstract: The research paper is going to revolve around Paul Auster’s urban dystopia entitled In the Country of Last Things . Yet, my claim is that the novel may also be categorised as an American city novel in which flâneuristic account plays a significant role. The focal point of the paper is going to be the comparison between Austerian figure of the urban stroller with a traditional one as developed in the 19 th century Paris. Although since then there have been numerous transformations and reformulations regarding literary representations of the city walker, I shall examine the protagonist Anna Blume in reference to features characteristic for a traditional 19 th century urban stroller. Some theorists claim that women cannot be regarded as city walkers; yet, the aim of the research paper is to prove that Anna, although a female character, can be considered as a postmodern variation of a flâneur. Auster’s fictional world might be compared to Lewis Mumford’s “theater of social action” [1] where the inhabitants’ quotidian drama is staged. This urban theater functions as fertile ground for the city walker’s observations, investigations, as well as subsequent artistic productions. A conventional flâneur is characterised as an aimless stroller for whom the very act of the ‘inspection’ of the crowd is a source of leisure. Yet, his desire is not only to experience the surroundings, but also to observe the physical construction of the city as well as its social dimension – the people around. Taking into consideration the very specificity of the flâneuristic figure, Anna Blume, despite representing the female part of society, can be regarded as a postmodern urban stroller since her only means of discovering and ‘learning’ the space is by walking along the city. Hence, the character created by Auster both diverges from the conventional image of the city walker in term of the characteristic features, and is consistent with it when the scope of the flâneur’s responsibilities is considered. [1] Mumford, Lewis. “What Is a City?” In LeGates Richard and Frederic Stout The City Reader . London: Routledge, 2011. 91-95.

Utopia and the Dirty Secret of Architecture

Abstract: In the theorization of Utopia in critical theory two paths of development have been widely acknowledged. On the one hand there is the Utopian plan, or project, identified by Fredric Jameson (among others) as a sweeping design that claims to solve and negate a social and political situation, in favour of an actually built, and better one. On the other hand, we find the Utopian impulse, a markedly different affair, having to do not with building a brand new society or revolution, but with a displaced, striving desire or "wish" to be something else under limited conditions, and a hint at a different future or unresolved present, an idea Jameson borrows from Ernst Bloch. This paper is invested in both varieties, from the already complicated and complicating perspective of architecture.