Description

This volume brings together articles on utopia and dystopia in a breadth of disciplines – history, literature, gender studies, political science, sociology, anthropology, and Native American Studies. The “Politics of the (Im)Possible” revolves around a word coined by Sir Thomas More which has become one of the most resonant concepts in the history of ideas: ‘Utopia’. The word offers simultaneously a locus of possibilities for human development, as well as a sense that this conceptualization might be impossible to actualize in reality. The utopian mode is a site of paradoxes. Such awareness of paradoxes and heterogeneities pervades this volume. Utopia and dystopia are modes and resonances present in all parts of the world, not just Europe and white North America. Equally, utopian and dystopian thought and practice are and have always been gendered. Utopia, memory and temporality intersect in often strange and surprising ways. Three dimensions are central to the enterprise undertaken in this volume: The relationship between utopia/dystopia and time/memory; The focus on Europe and areas outside Europe at the same time; and, the gendered analysis of utopia/dystopia. Utopia frequently shows desire for displaced communities whose histories, stories, myths, and narratives have to be recovered, reinvoked, and reconfigured. Utopia always has an important element of critique of the present. Contributors to this volume include prominent personalities and experts in fields as varied as Development Studies, Cultural Studies, Women’s Studies and Literature.