The concepts of utopia and dystopia have received much historical
attention. Utopias have traditionally signified the ideal future:
large-scale social, political, ethical, and religious spaces that have
yet to be realized. Utopia/Dystopia offers a fresh approach to these
ideas. Rather than locate utopias in grandiose programs of future
totality, the book treats these concepts as historically grounded
categories and examines how individuals and groups throughout time
have interpreted utopian visions in their daily present, with an eye
toward the future. From colonial and postcolonial Africa to
pre-Marxist and Stalinist Eastern Europe, from the social life of
fossil fuels to dreams of nuclear power, and from everyday politics in
contemporary India to imagined architectures of postwar Britain, this
interdisciplinary collection provides new understandings of the
utopian/dystopian experience. The essays look at such issues as
imaginary utopian perspectives leading to the 1856-57 Xhosa Cattle
Killing in South Africa, the functioning racist utopia behind the
Rhodesian independence movement, the utopia of the peaceful atom and
its global dissemination in the mid-1950s, the possibilities for an
everyday utopia in modern cities, and how the Stalinist purges of the
1930s served as an extension of the utopian/dystopian relationship.
The contributors are Dipesh Chakrabarty, Igal Halfin, Fredric Jameson,
John Krige, Timothy Mitchell, Aditya Nigam, David Pinder, Marci Shore,
Jennifer Wenzel, and Luise White.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781400834952
Publisert
2013
Utgiver
Vendor
Princeton University Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok