Philosophical fantasy: thinking utopian spaces and the space for utopian thought
Keywords:
utopia,
fantasy,
other worlds,
novelty,
social theory
Abstract
The main question of this article is why imagine other worlds. In addition to shedding light on the motivation, we also examine the imaginative processes, their resources and the associative arrangements available to imagination in the construction of new worlds. We see ‘other worlds’ as both utopian and as fantastic spaces, following the hypothesis that the space of fantasy is never entirely free. We place particular emphasis on the space and time of utopia, and on the aspect of the novelty. The paper is divided into four parts. The first takes into account the path to the other world, or the methodical problem of imagination. The second wants to portray the other world, or the limitations to imagining something entirely different and new. The third part inquires about the cost of utopian thinking: what is lost in the process, what is sacrificed to its flattening gestures? Finally, despite all these limitations, in the fourth part we consider the significance of utopian thought for social theory.
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References
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Disch, Thomas M. 1998. The Dreams our Stuff is Made of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Džejkobi, Rasel. 2002. Kraj utopije. Politika i kultura u doba apatije. Beograd: Beogradski krug.
Eagleton, Terry. 2000. Utopia And Its Opposites. Socialist Register 36: 31-40.
Eze, Emmanuel Chukwudi (ed.) 1997. Race and the Enlightenment: A Reader. Cambridge: Blackwell.
Fanon, Franc. 2015. Crna koža, bele maske. Novi Sad: Mediterran.
Fuko, Mišel. 2005. „Druga mesta“. U Mišel Fuko 1926-1984-2004. Hrestomatija, ur. Pavle Milenković i Dušan Marinković, 29-36. Novi Sad: Vojvođanska sociološka asocijacija.
Geuss, Raymond. 2016. „Some varieties of utopia“. neobjavljeni tekst izlaganja, Belgrade: Institute for philosophy and social theory, February.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. 1998 [1915]. Herland. New York: Dover Thrift Editions.
Grassi, Ernesto. 1981. Moć mašte: uz povijest zapadnog mišljenja. Zagreb: Školska knjiga.
Grewell, Greg. 2001. Colonizing the Universe: Science Fictions Then, Now, and in the (Imagined) Future. Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature 55 (2): 25–47.
Hagerman, Sharon Elizabeth. 1973. Some Aspects of a Utopian Society as Portrayed in Mercier’s L’an 2440. Nashville: Vanderbilt University.
Hanson, Robin. 1998. Burning the Cosmic Commons: Evolutionary Strategies for Interstellar Colonization. Dostupno na: http://hanson.gmu.edu/filluniv.pdf.
Horkheimerom, Max & Theodor W. Adorno. 1997. Dialektik der Aufklärung, Theodor W. Adorno: Gesammelte Schriften, Bd. 3. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Ingram, James, 2017. Introduction: Utopia and Politics. In Political Uses of Utopia: New Marxist, Anarchist, and Radical Democratic Perspectives, eds. S.D. Chrostowska & James D. Ingram, i-xxvi. New York: Columbia University Press.
Jameson, Fredric. 1982. Progress Versus Utopia; or, Can We Imagine the Future? Science-Fiction Studies 9: 147–158.
Jameson, Fredric. 1984. Postmodernism or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. New Left Review 146: 53–92.
Jameson, Fredric. 2007. Archaeologies of the Future: This Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions. London: Verso.
Johnson-Smith, Jan. 2004. American Science Fiction TV: Star Trek, Stargate and Beyond. London: I.B. Tauris.
Kandel, Michael. 1998. Is Something New Happening in Science Fiction? Science Fiction Studies 25: 1-6.
Kant, Immanuel. 1962 [1871]. Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Kants gesammelten Schriften, Bd. 3. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Kant, Immanuel. 1968 [1798]. Der Streit der Facultäten. Kants gesammelten Schriften, Bd. 7. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Levitas, Ruth. 2000. For Utopia: The (Limits of the) Utopian Function in Late Capitalist Society. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 3 (2): 25–43.
Lyotard, Jean-Francois. 1991. The Inhuman: Reflections on Time. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Lucian. 1958. True History, and Lucius or the Ass. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Mandeville, Sir John. 1997 [1356]. „Travel of Sir John Mandeville“. In The English Literatures of America, 1500-1800, eds. Myra Jehlen & Michael Warner, 8-9. New York: Routledge.
Mercier, Louis Sébastien. 1999 [1771]. L'An 2440: Rêve s'il en fut jamais, Paris: La Découverte.
Mor, Tomas. 1964 [1516]. Utopija. Beograd: Kultura.
Mumford, Louis. 1962 [1922]. The Story of Utopias. New York: The Viking Press.
Negri, Toni. 2014. Arte e multitudo. Roma: Derive Approdi.
Penley, Constance. 1990. „Time Travel, Primal Scene and The Critical Dystopia“. In Alien Zone: Cultural Theory and Contemporary Science Fiction Cinema, ed. Annette Kuhn, 116–127. London: Verso.
Pejtmen, Kerol. 2001. Polni ugovor. Beograd: Feministička 94.
Popper, Karl. 2002 [1963]. Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge. New York: Routledge.
Roberts, Adam. 2006. Science Fiction. London: Routledge.
Sargent, L.T. 1994. The Three Faces of Utopianism Revisited. Utopian Studies 5 (1): 1–37.
Smith, David R. 2006. Blueprint for Invisibility: The Science Fact and Fiction of Invisibility. Dostupno na: www.ee.duke.edu/_drsmith/cloaking.html
Smith, John. 1969 [1616]. „Description of New-England, by Captaine John Smith“. In American Literature: Tradition and Innovation, eds. Harrison T . Meserole, Walter Sutton & Brom Weber, 3-26. Lexington: Heath.
Suvin, Darko. 1982. Narrative Logic, Ideological Domination, and the Range of Science Fiction: A Hypothesis with a Historical Text. Science Fiction Studies 9: 1–25.
Wells, H.G. 1967. A Modern Utopia. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Published
2017-08-30
How to Cite
Zaharijević, Adriana, and Predrag Krstić. 2017. “Philosophical Fantasy: Thinking Utopian Spaces and the Space for Utopian Thought”. Issues in Ethnology and Anthropology 12 (2), 641–663. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.21301/eap.v12i2.14.
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Other Humanities and Social Sciences
Copyright (c) 2017 Adriana Zaharijević, Predrag Krstić
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