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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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Book ChapterDOI
01 Mar 2009
TL;DR: The authors examines the effects of thinking about utopias in the context of the anti-communist revolutions of 1989 and debates about globalization, and argues that the utopia/dystopia dichotomy should not obscure the ways in which utopian visions have differing contents and, as Levitas (1990, p. 185) says, are not the monopoly of the Left.
Abstract: This chapter examines the effects of thinking about utopia in the context of the anti-communist revolutions of 1989 and debates about globalization. Since Thomas More’s Utopia (1516), imaginative fiction has been a major source of utopian visions, and is also a critical commentary on society, and since the nineteenth-century, utopia has become an important strand of social theory (Kumar, 1991, p. 87). The latter differed significantly from fiction, though, in that for many political and social theories the projects of recreating social life according to principles of social justice and technological efficiency were understood as achievable objectives. On the other hand, such projects were alarming to some, and in response, images of the future in early twentieth-century fiction became increasingly dystopian — as in Huxley, Fritz Lang, Orwell, and Zamyatin. In social theory too, by contrast with optimistic socialist and liberal utopias, the future was often portrayed in dystopian ways — notably in Max Weber’s vision of a rationalized iron cage of modernity. But the utopia/dystopia dichotomy should not obscure the ways in which utopian visions have differing contents and, as Levitas (1990, p. 185) says, ‘are not the monopoly of the Left’ — on the contrary they may be uncongenial — neoliberal, nostalgic, past-oriented, and commodified.

2 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the ways in which fans interact with and respond to the Obernewtyn books, and how this has evolved and changed over time, and integrate this with reader response theory, looking closely at the responses of readers who began reading these books as children and who are continuing to engage with them decades later.
Abstract: Australian young adult (YA) fiction has a post-apocalyptic tradition that considerably pre-dates dystopia’s current global popularity. Long before characters like Katniss Everdeen and Tris Prior emerged into mainstream popular consciousness, Australian YA fiction gave us several strong heroines struggling for a better life in a postapocalyptic setting. One such was Elspeth Gordie of Isobelle Carmody’s Obernewtyn Chronicles. The Obernewtyn Chronicles are unusual in that they have been published across a considerable span of time. The first book was published in 1987, while the final instalment is not due to be published until the end of 2015. Numerous readers of the series have, in many ways, grown up with it: discovering it as pre-teens or teenagers, and continuing to follow it into adulthood. The first Obernewtyn fan site – obernewtyn.net – was established in 1999, and continues to be active to this day. However, despite the current popularity of texts like The Hunger Games and Divergent, the Obernewtyn Chronicles are not especially well known outside Australia. This article will explore the ways in which fans interact with and respond to the Obernewtyn books, and the ways in which this has evolved and changed. It will investigate two key questions. Why have the Obernewtyn Chronicles appealed so strongly to an Australian audience? And why have they appealed so strongly to a girl audience? I will draw on several different critical theories to unpack this appeal, including postcolonial theory, feminist theory, girlhood studies, and autoethnography. I will also integrate this with reader-response theory, looking closely at the responses of readers who began reading these books as children and who are continuing to engage with them decades later.

2 citations

Dissertation
01 Jan 2009
TL;DR: The humanistic potentials of music and broadcasting are considered using two conceits: (1) Sir Thomas Mote's diagnostic benchmark of desired alternatives and perfection: Utopia and (2) Utopia's 'desublimation' in More's quasi-antonymic term, eutopia which is an actual site of resources and relative goodness as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Musical eutopias offers positive critiques of the socio-cultural aspects of popular musics, the medium of radio in general, and the British Broadcasting Corporation in particular. Marxian critiques of what Ms9, together with normative, socialist visions of what 'ought' to be, are reviewed with reference to radio's listening subjects and broadcasting ideals. Arguably, popular musics embraced by radio only offer a dystopian standardisation for a mass audience. However, it is mooted here that socio- cultural knowledges mediated by a public service broadcaster can contribute positively to a subject's negotiation of modernity and the objective world. The humanistic potentials of music and broadcasting are considered using two conceits: (1) Sir Thomas Mote's diagnostic benchmark of desired alternatives and perfection: Utopia and (2) Utopia's 'desublimation' in More's quasi-antonymic term, eutopia which is an actual site of resources and relative goodness. To sift for music's Utopia and the eutopian aspects of Theodor Adorno's 'music in radio', the writings of Ernst Bloch, Herbert Marcuse and Jurgen Habermas are reassessed and joined by new Utopian theory from Caryl Flinn, Stephen Eric Bronner and allied thinkers. The cultural and allegorical dimensions of music, and the institutional histories and ideals of the BBC are examined through the work of Antonio Gramsci, Raymond Williams, Michel Foucault, David Levin, Christopher Norris, Simon Frith, Georgina Born and others. A near-Kantian sensibility, imagination and understanding are argued to develop (after Marcuse) in the musical eutopias of public broadcasting. There, a dialectic of Utopian musical desires, socio-political philosophies and independent professional agency promotes rich aesthetic content and an equitable discursive framework for all. The study concludes mat such in-common, public service eutopias of musical and moral dimensions are still of value for subjects becoming rational, empathetic species beings. Such eutopias might even counter new media solipsism and any instrumentally driven calls for broadcast reform. Thesis word total: 79,929. Excludes indented quotations, footnotes, appendices, references and bibliography.

2 citations

01 Jan 2014
TL;DR: The relevance of an urban project, from a critical point of view, lies in its capacity to pose questions about the city and its future, as well as about current and past practices of the discipline as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The relevance of an urban project, from a critical point of view, lies in its capacity to pose questions about the city and its future, as well as about current and past practices of the discipline. The strength of a critical argument might initiate productive discussions within and outside the circle of practioners, and therefore a pedagogical role can always be assigned to it. Fernando Silva’s urban plan for Portela (1960-1979) in the outskirts of Lisbon prompted important questions about urbanism, the contemporary city and the city dweller, that are still part of the contemporary architectural and urban agenda. The project raises many of the issues that have been frequently posed by architects, generation after generation: how can many individual worlds be tied together into one greater and inspiring whole? How are individuals expected to live within others? If the “home is a prime unexcavated site for an archaeology of sociability” (Putnam, 1999: 144), can we find a direct relationship between idealised ways of socialising in the home and outside it? How does the idea of home relate directly to an idea of urban? Those questions often relating private and collective unfold the concept of public space and this, in turn, the concept of community in terms such as “how does public space enhances public life” and, therefore, the sense of colectivity? Those questions, often look for ways of being translated into spatial terms. Therefore, they imply a rethinking of ongoing problems through drawing and the cross over between multiple scales. Housing can be understood to be a major element articulating the individual and society, the neighbourhood and the block. The spatial arrangement as a whole has a social content and therefore stands as an object of reflection. Drawn after the advent of modernism, Portela’s urban plan is probably one of the most eclectic, within the Portuguese culture, and can be analysed as an exercise that reflects over more than one century of urban theories, combining and reinventing new relations between those.

2 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
20241
2023244
2022672
202192
2020142
2019141