Description
Book Synopsis After the breakdown of socialist and communist systems in the East, it had become fashionable to declare the so-called "end of utopia" ("end of history," "end of narratives"). The authors of this volume do not share this view but think that it is time to rehabilitate utopian thought. The political concept of Utopia that has given its name to these transcendental projections onto the world has been too narrow to describe and analyze the moving forces of the mind perceiving human existence beyond reality. By broadening the perspectives of utopian studies, these essays enable the reader to reconstruct scholarly paradigms and strategies of utopian, complex and holistic thinking in modern cosmology, philosophy, sociology, in literary, historical and political sciences, and to compare traditions and ways of Western utopian thought to the practice in the East.
Trade Review “…a highly readable and structured discussion about utopian thinking at the beginning of the 21st century…It is indeed fortunate that political scientists, historians, philosophers, art critics, and literary theorists have come together to share their thinking on utopia and utopian thought at this disastrous moment of human history, when many are asking if there is a future to which to look forward.” · European Legacy
Table of Contents List of Illustrations
Preface and Acknowledgements
Introduction
Jörn Rüsen, Michael Fehr and Thomas W. Rieger
Chapter 1. The Necessity of Utopian Thinking: A Cross-National Perspective
Lyman Tower Sargent
PART I: POLITICS, CONSTRUCTION AND FUNCTIONS OF UTOPIAN THINKING
Chapter 2. Aspects of the Western Utopian Tradition
Krishan Kumar
Chapter 3. Visions of the Future
Michael Thompson
Chapter 4. Utopia, Contractualism, Human Rights
Richard Saage
Chapter 5. On the Construction of Worlds: Technology and Economy in European Utopias
Wolfgang Pircher
PART II: ARTIFICIAL WORLDS AND THE 'NEW MAN'
Chapter 6. Bodies in Utopia and Utopian Bodies in Imperial China
Dorothy Ko
Chapter 7. Science, Technology and Utopia: Perspectives of a Computer-Assisted Evolution of Humankind
Klaus Mainzer
Chapter 8. ‘Thinking about the Unthinkable’: The Virtual as a Place of Utopia
Claus Pias
Chapter 9. Natural Utopianism in Everyday Life Practice – An Elementary Theoretical Model
Ulrich Oevermann
PART III: MUSEUM AS UTOPIAN LABORATORY
Chapter 10. Haunted by Things: Utopias and Their Consequences
Donald Preziosi
Chapter 11. Art – Museum – Utopia: Five Themes on an Epistemological Construction Site
Michael Fehr
Chapter 12. Art, Science, Utopia in the Early Modern Period
Wolfgang Braungart
Chapter 13. Utopiary
Rachel Weiss
PART IV: UTOPIA AS A MEDIUM OF CULTURAL COMMUNICATION
Chapter 14. The Utopian Vision, East and West
Zhang Longxi
Chapter 15. Trauma: A Dystopia of the Spirit
Michael S. Roth
Chapter 16. From Revolutionary to Catastrophic Utopia
Slavoj Zizek
Chapter 17. The Narrative Staging of Image and Counter-Image: On the Poetics of Literary Utopias
Wilhelm Vosskamp
Chapter 18. Rethinking Utopia: A Plea for a Culture of Inspiration
Jörn Rüsen
Notes on Contributors
Index
