Topic
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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Dissertation•
01 Jan 2006
1 citations
TL;DR: The Book of Dave (2006) as discussed by the authors is a British writer's sixth novel, which explores the relationship between fathers and children, and the role of fathers as a key nexus where masculinity and patriarchy are reproduced.
Abstract: Will Self’s sixth novel, The Book of Dave (2006) develops the British writer’s ongoing interest in fathers and children, and fatherhood as a key nexus where masculinity and patriarchy are reproduced. The novel channels and critiques various types of narrative, including the “dad lit” genre, best represented by the popular novels of Nick Hornby and Tony Parsons, the post-apocalyptic and dystopian idiolect science fiction tradition of Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange and Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker, and social phenomena such as “new” fatherhood and the “fathers’ rights” movement. With wit, insight, anger, and compassion, Self’s novel engages and interrogates matters of paternity, patriarchy, power, the religions of the father, the malaise of millennial British working-class masculinities, and the question of what it might mean to be a post-patriarchal dad.
1 citations
Journal Article•
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the contradiction between a positive orientation toward the future (interpreted as hope) and negative representations of this same orientation (in the sense of fear) can be grasped through a series of dichotomies, contradictions, or paradoxes.
Abstract: One of the most challenging issues regarding contemporary utopianism is the contradiction between a positive orientation toward the future (interpreted as hope) and negative representations of this same orientation (in the sense of fear). Contrary to the tendency, which strives to a single, though an all-encompassing and broad designation of utopia, following a single concept, we argue in this paper that utopia and utopianism as such can be, at best, grasped through a series of dichotomies, contradictions, or paradoxes. From early utopian strategies dating back millennia to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, utopias always feature contradictory tendencies, which require closer inspection. It may be that in this contradictory nature of the utopian lies the key to understanding not only our past and present, but also the future. The most important in this sense turns out to be the difference between the “true” (or the iconoclast) and “false” (or the blueprint) utopia. Even though during the twentieth century the utopian hopes turned into dystopian fears, the only way to a different and possibly better future, therefore, seems to be offered by the “true”, iconoclast utopia, which keeps alive probably the most important trait of human existence: hope.
1 citations
TL;DR: Both Margaret Atwood and Ann Patchett engage with issues concerning indigenous knowledge, biodiversity and survival as discussed by the authors, and both are influenced by indigenous knowledge and the awareness of imminent disaster should people fall out of harmony with nature, a threat enacted in these Canadian eco-Gothic dystopian fictions.
Abstract: Both Margaret Atwood and Ann Patchett engage with issues concerning indigenous knowledge, biodiversity and survival. Margaret Atwood constructs a form of wilderness Gothic in Surfacing (1972) and Survival (1972), while in her darker eco-Gothic texts, The Handmaid's Tale (1985) and the MaddAddam trilogy (Oryx and Crake, 2003; The Year of the Flood, 2009; MaddAddam, 2013), she focuses on survival post holocaust. In her work she is influenced by indigenous knowledge and the awareness of imminent disaster should people fall out of harmony with nature, a threat enacted in these Canadian eco-Gothic dystopian fictions. This threat of extinction, of natural disaster based on arrogantly, deliberately or accidentally ignoring the importance of ecological diversity and of balance, of contestation, different voices and ways of being informs much of Atwood's work throughout her writing career and her everyday life. It is also of interest to many other women writers, including Ann Patchett from the US (State of Wonder, 2011), Alexis Wright from Australia (The Swan Book, 2013), Patricia Grace from New Zealand, (Baby No-Eyes, 1998), and Nalo Hopkinson from Jamaica/Toronto ("A Habit of Waste", 2001), each of whom engages with forms of indigenous knowledge, and recognizes the importance of diversity, exploring threats to survival and suggesting ways forward, and several of whom (including Patchett) evidence Atwood's influence on a younger generation of women writers. I should like to link Atwood's work to that of Ann Patchett, specifically her novel State of Wonder, which problematizes the involvement of non-indigenous people with the tribal behaviours, beliefs, and richness of the forest and jungle worlds in which they live in a balanced harmony.
1 citations