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.

Utopia and dystopia in homoerotic territory in Alan Hollinghurst's "The swimming-pool library", "The folding star" and "The spell"

Abstract: This essay aims at exploring the use of pastoral Arcadia as a privileged territory for English homoerotic literature to unfold, putting special emphasis on Alan Hollinghurst'srst three novels so far. With this purpose, I think particularly worth noting Terry Gifford's Pastoral (1999), where he points out the main characteristics of classic pastoral -a utopian genre deeply embedded in English landscape culture and writing-, as well as the dystopian anti-pastoral and post-pastoral. With this in mind, the essay delves into Hollinghurst's novels to determine whether and, if so, how they make use, update or re-negotiate pastoral traditions to meet the needs of gay writing at the turn of the millennium.

Generic multiplicity in Alasdair Gray's Lanark: a life in 4 books

Abstract: This paper begins by acknowledging the ontological multiplicity which characterises the fictional world(s) of Lanark: A Life in 4 Books, and suggests the need to complement this reading by looking into its generic multiplicity. In doing so, my analysis initially focuses on the opposition between the realistic and fantastic narratives, and the revitalising effect that such a relationship brings about; then it looks into how the novel blurs the frontiers between dystopian and utopian writing as well as between fantasy and science fiction, and contends that such a melange is an effective way of providing a panoramic view of contemporary Western society; finally, my analysis pays special attention to the Epilogue, which adds a metafictional dimension to the novel, and comments on the different interpretations that may be given to this display of narrative experimentation.

Unreal City: Nostalgia, Authenticity, and Posthumanity in “San Junipero”

Abstract: Daraiseh and Booker present a critical overview of the key issues that drive the Emmy-winning “San Junipero,” the fourth episode of the third series of Black Mirror (2011–). Widely regarded as the most optimistic and utopian episode in all of Black Mirror, “San Junipero” deals with a future in which the infirm and dying can have their consciousnesses uploaded to computer-simulated worlds, where they can happily live on in virtual reality, free of the maladies that had struck them down in the physical world. The episode focuses on a simulated California seaside town in 1987, though it implies that other times and places are also available within this system, which is operated by a large corporate entity known as TIKR systems. This chapter focuses particularly on the way popular culture from 1987 is used to enrich the virtual-reality environment of San Junipero, noting the way in which this aspect of the episode participates in a recent wave of nostalgic representations of 1980s popular culture. In addition, it discusses the way this episode participates in the phenomenon of postmodernism, especially as theorized by Fredric Jameson. Finally, it addresses the utopian orientation of this episode’s treatment of technology, but notes that it contains important dystopian aspects as well.

Schooling at the Doorstep of Dystopia: On Educating for Unsustainable Futures

Abstract: The lifespans of North American public school students are on course to intersect with emerging dystopian realities of human pain and suffering brought about by climate change and its effects. Are schools well-disposed to engage students earnestly about the worlds that scientific consensus advises us they will encounter? This essay of critique suggests that they are not. It suggests that a set of interrelated tendencies, fundamental to the philosophy and functioning of schools, precludes their doing so. It names and discusses these tendencies as the problem of overwhelming school allegiances to a self-help ethos of vacant positivity, the structural infantilization of young people as a function of school power relations, and the allegiance to short term economic imperatives and individualism over environmental sustainability and communitarianism in determinations of the meanings and purposes of education. The essay concludes that on the current course, schools are miseducating students and encouraging them on a path toward unsustainable futures.

Reading the Dystopian Short Story

Abstract: This thesis presents the first cognitive-poetic account of the dystopian short story and investigates the experience of dystopian reading. In doing so, it takes a mixed-methods approach that draws upon various types of experimental and naturalistic reader response data in support of my own rigorous stylistic analysis. The study focuses upon four contemporary short stories published within the last ten years: George Saunders’ ([2012] 2014g) ‘The Semplica Girl Diaries’; Paolo Bacigalupi’s ([2008] 2010a) ‘Pump Six’; Genevieve Valentine’s ([2009] 2012) ‘Is this your day to join the Revolution?’; and Adam Marek’s ([2009] 2012b) ‘Dead Fish’. These texts were selected for their focus upon socially relevant thematic concerns, their cultural resonance and their inherent didacticism – attributes which I argue determine the dystopian reading experience. In moving beyond the periodic demarcations imposed on dystopian narrative by traditional literary criticism, this study argues for a reader-led discussion of genre that takes into account reader subjectivity and personal conceptualisations of prototypicality. My research therefore offers a new contribution to the area of dystopian literary criticism, as well as advancing research in cognitive poetics and empirical stylistics more broadly. Framed within Text World Theory (Gavins, 2007; Werth, 1999), my thesis builds upon existing research and advances text-world-theoretical discussions of world-building, characterisation and reading experience. In particular, I argue for a more nuanced discussion of paratextual text-worlds and propose a systematic account of social cognition that can be applied in Text-World-Theory terms. As an original piece of stylistic analysis, this thesis challenges traditional conceptions of genre and aims to extend existing discussions of the emotional experience of literary reading. As a result, several contributions are also made to the field of empirical stylistics, as I test multiple reader response methods and combine key findings from each case study to present a multifaceted account of dystopian reading.