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.

The homeland as a lost paradise: postcolonial aspects in selected poems by tanure ojaide

Abstract: This paper deals with some of the most notable postcolonial, neocolonial, and ecological features that characterize the works of the Nigerian poet Tanure Ojaide who is best known for his cultural assertion and seriousness of attitude. It employs the theories of such leading critics as Fanon, Nkrumah, Ngugi, and others. The paper shows the poet's deep concern regarding the demise of the homeland from a utopia to a dystopia under the neo-colonial leaders. Ojaide's anti-neo-colonial project tends to restore connections with the homeland so as to maintain a larger collective national identity. It seeks to create a sense of belonging and identity out of the feeling of displacement. The paper also examines Ojaide's resistance mechanisms based on lecturing people on how to face such neo-colonial violations and to restore the golden heritage.

Archaeologies of the Future: Jameson’s Utopia or Orwell’s Dystopia?

Abstract: This paper begins with the proposition that Fredric Jameson's Archaeologies of the Future (2005) is the most important theoretical contribution to utopian and science-fiction studies since Darko Suvin's Metamorphoses of Science Fiction (1979). It argues that Jameson's derivation of 'anti-anti-Utopianism' from Sartrean anti-anti-communism will provide 'the party of Utopia' with as good a slogan as it is likely to find in the foreseeable future. It takes issue with Jameson over two key issues: his overwhelming concentration on American science-fiction, which seems strangely parochial in such a distinguished comparativist; and his understanding of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four as an 'anti-Utopia' rather than a dystopia. The paper argues that, for Nineteen Eighty-Four , as for any other science-fiction novel, the key question is that identified by Jameson: not 'did it get the future right?', but rather 'did it sufficiently shock its own present as to force a meditation on the impossible?'. It concludes that Jameson fails to understand how this process works for dystopia as well as utopia, for barbarism as well as socialism.

The Cambridge Introduction to George Orwell

Abstract: Arguably the most influential political writer of the twentieth century, George Orwell remains a crucial voice for our times. Known world-wide for his two best-selling masterpieces Nineteen Eighty-Four, a gripping portrait of a dystopian future, and Animal Farm, a brilliant satire on the Russian Revolution, Orwell has been revered as an essayist, journalist and literary-political intellectual, and his works have exerted a powerful international impact on the post-World War Two era. This Introduction examines Orwell's life, work and legacy, addressing his towering achievement and his ongoing appeal. Combining important biographical detail with close analysis of his writings, the book considers the various genres in which Orwell wrote: the realistic novel, the essay, journalism and the anti-utopia. Ideally suited for readers approaching Orwell's work for the first time, the book concludes with an extended reflection on why George Orwell has enjoyed a literary afterlife unprecedented among modern authors in any language.

'The twilight of utopia': British dystopian fiction and the Cold War

Abstract: This essay analyses British dystopian fiction in the cultural and political context of the Cold War. Although the conflict dominated international history during the latter half of the twentieth century, its impact on literary production has rarely been explored in British scholarship. The genre of dystopianism is used to demonstrate the significance of East-West hostilities to modern fiction. Ranging from George Orwell to Ian McEwan, J.G. Ballard and Martin Amis, and including reference to a number of rarely studied texts, the essay examines such key themes as authoritarianism, propaganda, technology, decolonisation, nuclear anxiety, anti-Americanisnm and anti-communism.

Eco-utopia or eco-catastrophe? Imagining California as an ecological utopia

Abstract: In this article, I explore four California-based eco-utopias: The Earth Abides (George Stewart, 1949), Ecotopia (Ernest Callenbach, 1975), Pacific Edge (Kim Stanley Robinson, 1990), and Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson, 1992). All four novels were written during, and deeply informed by, the Cold War (Although published in 1992, Snow Crash was clearly written toward the end of the Cold War and in the shadow of Soviet implosion), against a backdrop of imminent nuclear holocaust and a doubtful future. Since then, climate change has replaced the nuclear threat as a looming existential dilemma, on which a good deal of writing about the future is focused. Almost 70 years after the appearance of The Earth Abides, and 40 years after the publication of Ecotopia, eco-utopian imaginaries now seem both poignant yet more necessary than ever, given the tension between the anti-environmental proclivities of the Trump Administration, on the one hand, and the tendency of climate change to suck all of the air out of the room, on the other. And with drought, fire, flood, wind and climate change so much in the news, it is increasingly difficult to imagine eco-utopias of any sort; certainly they are not part of the contemporary zeitgeist—except in the minds of architects, bees and futurists, perhaps. But does this mean there is no point in thinking about them, or seeking insights that might make our future more sustainable? This article represents an attempt to revive eco-utopian visions and learn from them.