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.

What Went Wrong? Reflections on the Condition of Architecture and Urbanism in Lebanon

Abstract: In a short article presented at a conference in New York City two years ago, Joan Ockman lucidly diagnosed the contemporary dilemma faced by architecture, i.e. how to insert itself between a pessimistic discourse that warns of the end of time, and an uncritical surrender to globalization. This dilemma is now universal(i). It applies to New York City, where in the same context Kenneth Frampton commented on the dystopia of an "oddly paranoid, rather ruthless, instrumental and resentful landscape”(ii), as well as to other cities around the world, especially in the Third World, where more difficult conditions permeate architectural practice, resulting in even more devastated landscapes. This article will discuss issues that relate to architectural practice and pedagogy, drawing on specific examples in the context of Beirut, Lebanon, and reflecting on the impact of‘architectural education' and the transformations within the architectural profession in this context. One can no longer deny the negative impact of economics on a profession that has been, for the most part, idealistic in its approach to the built environment, but the responsibility of architects and architectural education, can no longer beminimized in assessing the problems that cities like Beirut face today. i The conference was organized at Columbia University, andpublished as The State of Architecture at the Beginning of the21st Century, New York: Monacelli Press, 2003. See JoanOckman's "Criticism in the Age of Globalization” [78-9]ii "Brief Reflections on the Predicament of Urbanism” , ibidem[13]

Decolonizing Utopia: Indigenous Knowledge and Dystopian Speculative Fiction

Abstract: Author(s): Morrison, Mary Irene | Advisor(s): Vint, Sherryl | Abstract: In a time of increasing inequality and ecological crisis, it seems more difficult than ever to imagine a more just and equitable world, where humanity's penchant for invention leads to better societies, rather than destroyed environments. Yet it is also conversely more necessary to do so, because such an imagination can become an inspiration for social change. This dissertation first examines how the techno-utopian imagination of even the most politically engaged European/Western science fiction (sf) writers is often problematic, in that it can perpetuate the utopian genre’s centuries-long entanglement with colonialism (dating back to colonial themes in Thomas More’s Utopia [1516]). This entanglement is prevalent for example in the biomedical science fictional imagination of Hollywood, as represented by the film Elysium, which imagines advanced medical technology and a class struggle to distribute it more equitably. Yet the film requires a White Savior (Matt Damon) to lead mostly poor people of color to revolution. Other problematic tropes abound in the genre, including alien Others as Indigenes in a primitive utopia, for example in Avatar. The technoscientific imagination advanced in sf with utopian themes is also coopted by corporations, who use utopian rhetoric to mask exploitation and environmental degradation. For example, Monsanto justifies the use of pesticides that harm people and the environment, by arguing that their advancements will “feed the world” now and into the future. This study then looks at the depiction of Indigenous sciences and knowledges in utopian/dystopian science fiction, in contrast to the techno-utopianism of Western science and science fiction. I study how Gerald Vizenor (Anishinaabe), Nalo Hopkinson (Afro-Caribbean), Thomas King (Cherokee), Larissa Sansour (Palestinian), and others imagine Indigenous philosophies of science, specifically how these approaches can address the world's most pressing problems, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and inequality — while maintaining healthy and just societies. The fourth chapter for example focuses on Gerald Vizenor’s Heirs of Columbus, a novel featuring a utopian reservation where Indigenous scientists heal genetic trauma resulting from colonialism. I show how Vizenor offers a decolonized view of utopia, through the potential and priorities of an approach to biotechnology informed by Indigenous philosophies.

Child and youth protagonists in Habila’s Measuring Time and Dangor’s Bitter Fruit

Abstract: Helon Habila’s Measuring Time (2007) and Achmat Dangor’s Bitter Fruit (2001) deploy child and youth protagonists to offer nuanced and revealing perspectives on contemporary nationhood in Nigeria and South Africa respectively. By these means, these two important novels displace the adult—and mostly male—viewpoints that have dominated novelistic portrayals of postcolonial nationhood for decades. Using notions of the literary symbolism of childhood and the biological family as points of departure, this article analyses the portrayal of these protagonists in terms of their allegorical and metonymic representation of the nation as a social unit. This article explores the ways in which the subjectivities of the protagonists may reflect national anxieties in general and the problems of contemporary socio-political transition in particular. It highlights how the different pathways followed by Habila’s and Dangor’s characters may represent simultaneously dystopian and auspicious futures for Nigeria and South Africa while also bringing recent writing from two of Africa’s eminent literary sites into a rare conversation that helps to extend our understanding of the continent’s contemporary realities. Keywords: children, dystopia, family, nation, transition, youth

Introduction: A Dream Called Rome

Abstract: This introductory chapter calls for a fresh appraisal of European science fiction cinema, arguing that the genre has for too long been neglected in a European sphere. Beginning with an exploration of the science fictional nature of European integration—a project with utopian ideals that emerged as a response to the dystopian horrors of the Second World War—the chapter then turns to European science fiction cinema itself, which, it argues, has undergone a major resurgence in the twenty-first century, in keeping with the myriad crises to have assailed the European Union during this period.

In Search of Caravans Lost . Iranian Intellectuals and Nationalist Discourse in the Inter-War Years.

Abstract: This dissertation examines the characteristics of Iranian nationalist discourse between the World Wars. By looking at texts of intellectuals, men and women, published in three journals (Iranshahr, Name-ye Farangestan, and Ayandeh) in the 1920s this study maps the content of nationalist discourse and to what extent this discourse allows for dissonance. Informed by the work of Reinhart Koselleck (conceptual history), Quentin Skinner (the intellectual and his statements) and Michel Foucault (discourse analysis) the study triangulates a method for the in-depth study of the key texts in these journals. The narrative approach of Jorn Rusen is adopted in order to structure and dissect the journal articles. Key concepts in historical sociology help us pin point the underlaying assumptions of how history progresses in general and how modernity can be understood in particular. For these intellectuals Europe is considered both a possible future and a source of threatening imperialism. In constructing their own notion of what constitutes Iran and Iranians, they utilise both Europe (ideal, utopia) and to a lesser extent Africa (dystopia). Certain key issues emerge as of particular importance to modernist and nationalist intellectuals in their political projects and thus their narratives. Here we find national unity and notions of belonging – Iranianess. Subsequently an important medium for instilling this sense of belonging – education – is argued over, revealing ambitions and visions beyond unity. What kind of society and what degree of public participation do different intellectuals clamour for? The most sensitive topic is undoubtedly the gender aspect of nationhood and society. Here the question is how to re-configure gender roles without abdicating patriarchal control. On this topic some of the greatest dissonances can be found, where certain writers, from within a nationalist framework, harshly criticise both traditional gender divisions and reformist notions of marriage and female emancipation. History does not repeat itself in its entirety but, as shown in this dissertation, what took place intellectually and politically in the 1920’s and 30’s points to salient elements that remain relevant for understanding Iran in the present. (Less)