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.

A Future-Oriented Past: Deictic Reformulations of WWII in Contemporary War Comics

Abstract: In recent years, the representation of the Second World War in US pop culture has undergone a radical transformation, especially in war comics. The conflict has indeed ceased to be depicted only in accurate historical reconstructions or on survivors’ personal memories: several recent World War Two comics memorialize historical events only up to a certain point, beyond which they reinterpret history and envision a hypothetical future staged on World War Two but inspired by contemporary elements and preoccupations. In light of this transformation, this essay will demonstrate how one of the main products of post-generational comics about World War Two is a representational mode originated from a multi-layered imagination of the war itself, rooted in historical records but contaminated by post-Cold War era cultural tropes. This examination transcends Marianne Hirsch’s notion of postmemory as strictly activated within familial bonds, but it implies the transfer of World War Two collective memory to a post-generation (broadly intended) of people “who were not actually there.” I will focus on Garth Ennis’ miniseries Bloody Mary (1996), and Kieron Gillen’s ongoing series, titled Uber (2013-present). Both texts envision dystopian contemporary societies torn apart by World War Two, which did not end in 1945 but continued into the 21 st century, and both narratives present elements pertaining to the official memory, as well as on a constellation of components which are part of a contemporary and deictic war imagination.

Critical Dystopia: Local Narrative in the Threshold in AhmedKhaled Towfik’s Utopia

Abstract: This study is an exploration of critical dystopia within a postmodern context. Literary and historical viewpoints associate dystopia with the failed utopia of twentieth-century totalitarianism manifested in regimes of extreme coercion, inequality, and slavery. Raffaella Baccolini and Tom Moylan, of whose perspective this study makes use, theorize that critical dystopia provides a potential for change through rejecting the traditional dystopian ending marked by the subjugation of the individual. Problematizing critical dystopia further, the study proposes that the critical orientation of this sub-genre originates mainly from the “local narrative” of a subject whose agency generates from his position in the “threshold” between those in and under control, combined with the “counter-conducts” he uses to acquire knowledge, memory, and awakened consciousness. As a full agent, the subject resists the “utopian” “metanarrative” of an oppressive system/structure and offers possibilities of meaning in a process of “differance” which entails a potential for change. This proposition is clarified through the close reading of Ahmed Khaled Towfik’s Utopia (2011; first published in Arabic in 2008). The novel is discussed as a critical dystopian text in which Gaber, the subject in the “threshold,” opposes the totalitarian regime of Utopia in his “local narrative.”

Does Wall•E Dream of Electric Kale? The California Dream as Post-Scarcity Nightmare

Abstract: Since Europeans first became aware of the California landscape, they have used it as an imagined blank slate upon which to draw utopias. A legacy of failed communes and speculative schemes has never slowed California’s booster class from fashioning themselves as the harbingers of a bright new future: the state’s natural geography of abundance, when mixed by the “right” people with the right technology, will bring forth a cornucopia of wealth and leisure. Where material realities feed fantasies, and where fictions shape social-relations is perpetually blurred. This paper uses Pixar Studio's 2008 academy award winning film, WALL•E , as a departure point to examine how the California dream is shaped by its nightmarish inversion—technological innovation overtaking and destroying the nature that is the true source of happiness. In the film, a dystopian world appears not from the nuclear war or the strife that incites other dystopias, but from a post-scarcity society driven to mass overconsumption and a labor-less life. The film, however, does not attempt to warn us away from this path, but works to revive the technological fetish as nascent ecological utopia. The audience is shown thinking machines that transcend the boundary between human and non-human, with the heroic eponymous character stumbling its way into reestablishing human social relations, de-alienating their labor, and bringing forth a cyborg-mediated nature. The paper offers a critical reading of how California ideologies are reflected back and reinforced in the world of films like WALL•E, not as radical and open, but liberal and confined by their commitments to the status quo.

Spatial and Psychophysical Domination of Women in Dystopia: Swastika Night, Woman on the Edge of Time and The Handmaid’s Tale

Abstract: Analyzing Burdekin’s Swastika Night Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time and Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale the article aims to examine the relations between space, gender-based violence, and patriarchy in women’s writing. Hitlerdom in Swastika Night, the mental hospital and the future dystopian New York in Woman on the Edge of Time, and Gilead in The Handmaid’s Tale are spatial and social nightmares. The authorities that rule these dystopias imprison women in restricted spaces first, limit their vocabulary and daily actions, deprive them of their beauty, freedom and consciousness, and impose maternity or sexuality upon them. My analysis will connect the limitation of space with the psychophysical domination the objectification and the disempowerment of the female gender. Hoping also to shed light on the dynamics and the reasons for contemporary real gender-based violence and depreciation, the study will be focused on: 1. the ways space contributes to the creation, the stability and the dominion of dystopian powers; 2. the representation and the construction of female figures, roles and identities; 3. the techniques of control, manipulation and oppression used by patriarchal powers against women; 4. the impact of sex, sexuality and motherhood on women’s bodies; and 5. the possible feminist alternatives or solutions proposed by the novels.

“I’m beginning to know who I am”: The Rebellious Subjectivities of Katniss Everdeen and Tris Prior

Abstract: Scott Westerfeld's dystopian "Uglies" series depicts a world that claims to have eliminated the pressures through mandatory plastic surgery that makes all sixteen-year-olds equally attractive. However, as protagonist Tally Youngblood discovers just before her surgery, the procedure modifies minds as well as bodies. By focalizing the narrative through Tally's perspective during her pre and post-operative days, Westerfeld interrogates assumptions about what constitutes beauty and how individuals and societies respond to beauty, as well as the very concept of feminine identity itself. Tally's ability to take on new identities might seem to resemble that of a teenager who changes herself to become popular. However, it is concern for others that motivates Tally to submit herself to society's dictates of how she should look. The leaders of Tally's society claim to have determined that giving all citizens the same degree of beauty averts judgments based on appearance and related problems, including racial tension and war.