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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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Journal ArticleDOI
01 Nov 2012
TL;DR: The 2009 Prisoner as mentioned in this paper adapts the dimension of social criticism of the 1967 Village by turning it into another form of dystopia, which takes into account the heightened importance of surveillance in contemporary society, as well as the major changes in the meaning and purposes of surveillance brought about by new technology.
Abstract: The 2009 Prisoner is an adaptation rather than a remake, as many changes from the original may be noticed. One of the most important adjustments is related to the use of surveillance in the creation of a dystopic society. The original series’ space, which was entirely submitted to Number 2’s gaze, could be defined as panoptic, an aspect of the show designed to expose the upcoming or possible evils of what would later be called the surveillance society. The 1967 Prisoner, however, mainly showed surveillance to be an instrument of power, even if the watchers’ gaze was sometimes equated with the spectators’, thereby proving TV to bring a different form of power, based on showing as much as on watching. An iconic change in the new version is that the 2009 Prisoner resigned from a New York-based surveillance company called Summakor, whereas his 1967 counterpart was a British government agent. This seemingly incidental relocation gives new meaning to the TV series as a whole, as surveillance, which was one of the prominent themes of the original programme, becomes a keystone of the whole plot in the 2009 Prisoner. The new series goes much further in investigating the media-related aspects of the surveillance society as well as the social and ideological changes prompted by the creation of new forms of surveillance technology (which have made panopticism a concept to be reassessed or even renewed). The aim of this paper is to show that the 2009 Prisoner manages to adapt the dimension of social criticism of the 1967 Village – the gilded cage the prisoner is sent to – by turning it into another form of dystopia, which takes into account the heightened importance of surveillance in contemporary society, as well as the major changes in the meaning and purposes of surveillance brought about by new technology.

2 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
Barnita Bagchi1
TL;DR: Part of the American Studies Commons, Comparative Literature Commons, Education Commons, European Languages and Societies Commons, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Other Arts and Humanities Commons, Other Film and Media Studies, Reading and Language Commons, Rhetoric and Composition Commons, Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons, Television Commons, and the Theatre and Performance Studies Commons as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Part of the American Studies Commons, Comparative Literature Commons, Education Commons, European Languages and Societies Commons, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Other Arts and Humanities Commons, Other Film and Media Studies Commons, Reading and Language Commons, Rhetoric and Composition Commons, Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons, Television Commons, and the Theatre and Performance Studies Commons

2 citations

DOI
18 Sep 2020
TL;DR: In this article, a case study pairings featuring a work of architectural and literary fiction, which were created within a similar historical and societal context and which dealt with similar issues is presented.
Abstract: “Forms of Utopia” is part of a larger research investigating critical and speculative methods used in architectural and literary utopian and dystopian works of the 20th century. It presents one of several case study pairings featuring a work of architectural and literary fiction, which were created within a similar historical and societal context and which deal with similar issues. The text investigates and juxtaposes two fictional worlds created in the first part of the 20th century, namely Ludwig Hilberseimer’s architectural proposal Metropolisarchitecture, and Yevgeny Zamyatin’s literary work We. Taking into consideration various issues which arise while examining works from two different fields, a comparative method was devised which combines approaches taken from both the literary and architectural field. The developed method is based on a combination of Carline Levine’s approach proposed in her book Forms: Whole, Rhythm, Hierarchy, Network (Princeton UP, 2015) and an architectural typological analysis. By using this method, the text examines various forms and patterns of spatial and social experience which are described in the works and through which the utopian and dystopian worlds are structured. Focusing on two main types of forms identified by Levine – namely bounded wholes and rhythms – the text distills common threads, investigates how the authors propose and generate a built and social environment, and how this environment is ideologically and critically charged. While examining the various social and spatial forms which are used to build both fictional worlds, the text also explores the fact that, even though the two worlds are sometimes based on same spatial forms, one author views his project as utopian while the other proposes a dystopian future.

2 citations

Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 2019
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the predominance of apocalyptic themes paradoxically discloses an effort to imagine the world system in its unrepresentable totality, which makes possible a sort of political unconscious of dystopian cinema, which in turn becomes a way of understanding the seemingly chaotic world system itself.
Abstract: From The Hunger Games to World War Z, dystopian narratives with apocalyptic themes have dominated mainstream popular culture in the United States and worldwide in recent years. Reflecting on Fredric Jameson’s famous remark about how it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism, this chapter suggests that the predominance of apocalyptic themes paradoxically discloses an effort to imagine the world system in its unrepresentable totality. Examining a number of recent films, it identifies three particular traits—clear temporal limits, an identifiable political order, and the desirable simplification of social complexes—that make possible a sort of political unconscious of dystopian cinema, which in turn becomes a way of understanding the seemingly chaotic world system itself.

2 citations


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