Futurescapes: Space in Utopian and Science Fiction DiscoursesRalph Pordzik Rodopi, 2009 - 366 páginas This book testifies to the growing interest in the many spaces of utopia. It intends to 'map out' on utopian and science-fiction discourses some of the new and revisionist models of spatial analysis applied in Literary and Cultural Studies in recent years. The aim of the volume is to side-step the established generic binary of utopia and dystopia or science fiction and thus to open the analysis of utopian literature to new lines of inquiry. The essays collected here propose to think of utopias not so much as fictional texts about future change and transformation but as vital elements in a cultural process through which social, spatial and subjective identities are formed. Utopias can thus be read as textual systems implying a distinct spatial and temporal dimension; as 'spatial practices' that tend to naturalize a cultural and social construction - that of the 'good life', the radically improved welfare state, the Christian paradise, the counter-society, etc. - and make that representation operational by interpellating their readers in some determinate relation to their givenness as sites of political and individual improvement. This volume is of interest for all scholars and students of literature who wish to explore the ways in which utopias of the past and recent present have circulated as media of cultural exchange and homogenization, as sites of cultural and linguistic appropriation and as foci for the spatial formation of national and regional identities in the English-speaking world. |
Índice
CHAPTER II HOMELY SPACES INTIMATE BORDERS UTOPIAS TO LIVE IN | 129 |
CHAPTER III WORLDS BEYOND WORLDS THE LIMITS OF GEOGRAPHICAL AND PERCEPTUAL SPACE | 249 |
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aesthetic Anglo-Irish Antarctic Antarctica argues become Benjamin Buchan Caribbean century Certeau Chaplin’s Chesterton concept contemporary country house country house poem critical cryonic cultural cyberpunk cyberspace cynical deterritorialization discourse dystopian early modern Elgin England English essay eugenics European experience exploration film Foucault future Galton garden city genre George Orwell Gibson Glissant global Handmaid’s Tale heterotopias Howard’s human humanist Hythloday idea ideal identity imagination Ireland Irish island kynicism Láadan language linguistic literary literature London matrix means Men Like Gods Modern Utopia More’s narrative narrator nation Neuromancer Nineteen Eighty-Four nostalgia novel O’Brien one’s Orwell Orwell’s past Penshurst perspective phallogocentric poem political Pordzik postcolonial postmodern present reader reality reification Sapir-Whorf hypothesis Science Fiction Scott’s sense social society spatial story structures temporal theory Thomas tion tive tradition transformation translation turn utopian space vision William Gibson Winston women words writing York