Description
Book SynopsisIn Radical Utopianism and Cultural Studies, John Storey looks at the concept of utopianism from a cultural studies perspective and argues that radical utopianism can awaken the political promise of cultural studies.
Between the Preface and the Postscript, there are seven chapters that explore different aspects of radical utopianism. The book begins with a definition of what radical utopianism means, with its productive combination of defamiliarization and desire. From there, it considers Thomas More's invention of the concept of utopia with its double articulation of what is and what could be, Herbert Marcuse's utopian rereading of Sigmund Freud's concept of repression, Gerrard Winstanley and the Diggers, the Paris Commune, and the Haight-Ashbury counterculture. In the final chapter, Storey examines two versions of utopian capitalism: retro and post. Although the main focus here is on Donald Trump's presidential el
Trade Review
In Radical Utopianism and Cultural Studies, John Storey has delivered a breath of fresh revolutionary air into the miasma of respectable co-optation that has engulfed this once radical project. When Stuart Hall and others developed the framework and methodology of cultural studies, they were creating new interdisciplinary ways to study and intervene in the "terrible interconnection between culture and society" (Hall). Unfortunately, the regression imposed on the scholarly sphere by the neoliberal rise to power from the 1980s onward has managed to temper and tame this project. Too often reduced to little more than an academic field, the radical intellectual work of cultural studies has collapsed within a precarious university atmosphere that encourages collaboration and careerism. In this book, Storey brings the critical apparatus of utopian theory and method (especially as developed in the tradition of Marx, Ernst Bloch, Fredric Jameson, Ruth Levitas, and others) to revive and regenerate the transgressive and transformative of which this project is capable. I urge all cultural studies scholars and teachers to buy this book. I urge all who are interested in not only understanding the world but in changing it to buy this book.
Tom Moylan, University of Limerick
Table of ContentsPreface Cultural Studies and Utopian Desire
Chapter 1 Radical Utopianism: Defamiliarization and Desire
Chapter 2 The Happy Place That Exists Nowhere
Chapter 3 Herbert Marcuse and the Great Refusal
Chapter 4 Gerard Winstanley and the Law of Righteousness
Chapter 5 The Paris Commune: Storming Heaven
Chapter 6 The Chimes of Freedom Flashing: The Haight-Ashbury Counterculture
Chapter 7 Utopian Capitalism: Retro and Post
Postscript Making Hope and History Rhyme
