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.

Waikīkī : a history of forgetting & remembering

Abstract: "Waikiki: A History of Forgetting and Remembering" presents a compelling cultural and environmental history of the area, exploring its place not only in the popular imagination, but also through the experiences of those who lived there. Employing a wide range of primary and secondary sources - including historical texts and photographs, government documents, newspaper accounts, posters, advertisements, and personal interviews - an artist and a cultural historian join forces to reveal how rich agricultural sites and sacred places were transformed into one of the world's most famous vacation destinations. The story of Waikiki's conversion from a vital self-sufficient community to a tourist dystopia is one of colonial oppression and unchecked capitalist development, both of which have fundamentally transformed all of Hawai'i. Colonialism and capitalism have not only changed the look and function of the landscape, but also how Native Hawaiians, immigrants, settlers, and visitors interact with one another and with the islands' natural resources. The book's creators counter this narrative of displacement and destruction with stories - less known or forgotten - of resistance and protest.

Undead Apocalypse: Vampires and Zombies in the 21st Century

Abstract: Explores the intersection of the vampire and zombie with 21st Century dystopian and post-apocalyptic cinema.Twenty-first century film and television is overwhelmed with images of the undead. Vampires and zombies have often been seen as oppositional: one alluring, the other repellant; one seductive, the other infectious. With case studies of films like I Am Legend and 28 Days Later, as well as TV programmes like Angel and The Walking Dead, this book challenges these popular assumptions and reveals the increasing interconnection of undead genres. Exploring how the figure of the vampire has been infused with the language of science, disease and apocalypse, while the zombie text has increasingly been influenced by the trope of the 'reluctant' vampire, Stacey Abbott shows how both archetypes are actually two sides of the same undead coin. When considered together they present a dystopian, sometimes apocalyptic, vision of twenty-first century existence.Key featuresRather than seeing them as separate or oppositional, this book explores the intersection and dialogue between the vampire and zombie across film and televisionMuch contemporary scholarship on the vampire focuses on Dark Romance, while this book explores the more horror-based end of the genreOffers a detailed discussion of the development of zombie televisionProvides a detailed examination of Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, including the novel, the script, the adaptations and the BBFC's response to Matheson's script

The Map of Apocalypse: Nuclear War and the Space of Dystopia in American Science Fiction

Abstract: In the summer of 1945, with Nazi Germany defeated and the war in the Pacific drawing to a close (albeit a prospectively bloody one), American behavioural psychologist B. F. Skinner sat down to write a now famous Utopia called Walden Two, which was published in 1948. Walden Two is a Utopia very much like a frontier community with the benefits of twentieth-century sociological and technological advances, and was a centre of controversy when it was published and has remained so since.1 However, George Orwell published Nineteen Eighty-Four in 1949, and the following two decades were characterised not by the production of Utopian texts, but by Utopia’s inverse: dystopia.