Utopian, Dystopian, and Post-Apocalyptic Fiction

Creativity and imagination are the most important ingredients for coping with post-normal times, according to Sardar.This paper looks at the way creativity itself is being transformed in the West, from the individualistic/atomistic view of Modernity towards a more contextual, collaborative, complex approach. It explores the potential and possibilities for this more participatory creativity to help go beyond the ‘‘crisis of the
future,’’and argues that the centrality of creativity must go beyond the mythology of genius and inspiration to inform philosophy, ethics, and action. Philosophical reflection and the imagination of desirable futures can emerge from a creative ethic that stresses the value of generative interactions and contexts that support creativity.

"Les recompositions territoriales sont à l'ordre du jour à l'échelle planétaire, au Sud comme au Nord. Il s’agit d'une part, d’une vague sans précédent de décentralisations et de redécoupages municipaux et régionaux associés ; et d'autre part, des nouveaux acteurs territorialisés dits de la société civile (ONG, associations, groupements…) souvent partenaires des institutions internationales, qui se constituent leurs propres périmètres d’intervention chevauchant, recoupant, recouvrant ou englobant les mailles administratives officiellement reconnues. La production contemporaine des territoires locaux n’obéit donc plus exclusivement à l’encadrement administratif du territoire national d’un côté et à la gestion des services publics municipaux de l’autre, mais plutôt à une logique de recherche des territoires multiformes du développement, au sens d’espaces de mobilisation des différents acteurs potentiels du développement autour d’un projet. Deux mots d'ordre qui se déclinent en de multiples interprétations, accompagnent, justifient et encouragent ces mutations : "gouvernance" et "développement durable".
Partout, les pouvoirs publics investis dans un travail de recomposition plus ou moins radicale sont en quête de modèles, ils doivent aussi innover pour réussir la mobilisation pour le développement appelée de leurs vœux, parallèle bien souvent à leur désengagement. L’heure n’est plus à la rationalisation cartésienne, mais plutôt à une certaine géométrie variable de type « postmoderne » pouvant accompagner la complexité territoriale ambiante, elle même liée aux multiples ancrages et périmètres des réseaux d’acteurs.
Le Nord est tenté d’aller voir au Sud comment tradition, réseaux sociaux et identitaires ont pu se conjuguer avec administrations territoriales coloniale et postcoloniale, tandis que le Sud tend à s’éloigner d’une démarche de mimétisme et interroge les impasses des modèles du Nord, tout en cherchant à capter les nouvelles rentes du développement durable.
Ce livre constitue une synthèse et une mise en perspective théorique, de travaux en géographie politique sur les techniques et les enjeux de la fabrication des territoires. Chacune des 5 parties constitutives du livre est l’occasion de faire le point sur une des entrées cruciales du champ des recompositions territoriales. Pour chaque partie, une synthèse est produite qui permet de situer les apports des travaux de l’auteur dans le cadre de la production scientifique sur le thème, et de poser une série de questions. Des études et des développements originaux concernant notamment l’Afrique du Sud sont présentés à l’appui de ces parties. Par ailleurs, chacune de ces parties est l’occasion de formaliser des points théoriques sous forme d’axiomes, ou des points méthodologiques sous forme de graphes et grilles de lecture.

« 1. Vers le tout territorial » constitue un cadrage contemporain de la thématique. Cette partie permet de revenir sur l’ampleur du phénomène de construction multiforme de territoires locaux et régionaux, et de proposer une méthode graphique d’appréhension des systèmes d’administration territoriale dans leur complexité. Sont évoquées également les raisons du primat de l’approche territoriale dans les politiques publiques et les modes d’intervention pour le développement. L’axiome exposé dans cette partie concerne : “les logiques des 3 dimensions de l’Aménagement du territoire”.

« 2. Pas mort l’optimum, les formes contemporaines de l’utopie organiciste » revient sur les modèles, les techniques et les référents à l’œuvre dans la fabrication contemporaine des territoires. L’analyse porte plus particulièrement sur la tendance qui s’exprime chez les experts et les scientifiques à la quête d’un optimum territorial renouvelé qui combinerait fonctionnalité, participation et géométrie variable. L’axiome exposé concerne “la géométrie variable des territoires de la durabilité”

« 3. La condition du chef-lieu, de l’effet à l’enjeu » envisage les construits territoriaux sous l’angle de leur centralité. Plus particulièrement, c’est le thème de l’effet chef-lieu qui est traité et qui fait l’objet d’une présentation dans ses déclinaisons sud-africaines. Plus généralement, est proposée une interprétation générale de son paradoxal succès universel qui voit les villes secondaires tenter de se tailler des arrière-pays étendus à l’heure où les dotations publiques aux chefs-lieux se tarissent et où les charges de centralité augmentent. L’axiome exposé concerne “les modes de traitement territorial de la ville”

« 4. Les confins, entre innovation et relégation  » aborde cette fois les territoires par leurs marges en défendant la thèse des confins comme lieux potentiels d’innovations territoriales, mais aussi d’atomisation du pouvoir territorialisé. C’est plus particulièrement leur traitement dans le champ de la conservation et de la protection sur le continent africain qui fait l’objet d’un développement. L’axiome exposé dans cette partie concerne “la règle des 1-3 2-4”, autrement dit le principe de contournement de l’échelon inférieur et d’encouragement à l’affranchissement de ses limites.

« 5. La postmodernité territoriale, éclairages africains » C’est donc une réflexion sur la postmodernité territoriale à partir des réalités africaines sur le temps long qui vient clore le mémoire. Elle reprend une notion qui parcourt les interprétations proposées pour les quatre autres entrées thématiques. Les réalités africaines, et singulièrement sud-africaines avec l’Apartheid, permettent en effet de questionner l’apparente linéarité et la succession des pré et des post dans le champ territorial et d’analyser les conditions d’émergence de construits hybrides.

Les axiomes énoncés esquissent une table des combinaisons et des règles d’usage des figures et modèles territoriaux, une grammaire de la composition territoriale politique. On voit par exemple comment la référence obligée au développement durable peut renvoyer non seulement à différents modèles, mais également à différents ordres fonctionnels et/ou méthodologiques pour définir des types de configurations territoriales dites“durables”
En fait, trois règles se combinent pour fonder les doctrines des réformes territoriales et les positionnements des collectivités et des coalitions.
La première règle est celle de l’imposition systématique d’un gabarit approximatif tandis que des marges de manœuvre sont laissées généralement à une commission pour l’appréciation ou la négociation des limites. Le gabarit des mailles est stratégique pour le dépassement ou la reprise d’un ordre ancien, pour l’encadrement et le contrôle adaptés aux moyens administratifs ou militaires, mais aussi pour le ciblage des coalitions territoriales promues comme partenaires. L’imposition d’un gabarit est la véritable condition territoriale du projet politique.
Cette règle en rejoint une autre qui s’apparente à une loi. La loi du 1/3-2/4 veut qu’un niveau de pouvoir en cours d’affirmation structure son territoire en cherchant des relais susceptibles de court-circuiter le niveau inférieur contre lequel il tend à s’affirmer.
Une règle enfin se dégage pour expliquer le positionnement des villes non-métropoles dans les processus contemporains de recompositions territoriales. Cette règle est celle de la “compensation hiérarchique” qui veut que pour compenser leur déficit dimensionnel, les villes moyennes et petites ont tendance, au Nord comme au Sud, à revendiquer des arrière-pays élargis. L’enjeu est celui de la captation des fonctions d’intermédiation territoriale, et ce malgré les charges de centralité. La cité et ses élites sont en capacité de représenter un territoire et ses ressources vis-à-vis d’acteurs externes -investisseurs ou bailleurs de fonds-, les agents de la cité sont alors incontournables pour l’accès et la valorisation de ces ressources. Cette position d’intermédiation à la tête d’un territoire élargi semble nécessaire pour exister dans la globalisation hors des aires métropolitaines. Elle prend le relais de la recherche d’un effet-chef-lieu qui, avec le désengagement des Etats, ne se traduit plus sous la forme de dotations en fonctionnaires et en équipements.
Avec ces quelques règles se dessinent des logiques qui donnent du sens à la complexité territoriale contemporaine et à ses formes. Cette complexité se traduit par une profusion et une hybridité des territoires sur fond d’effacement des normes de la modernité territoriale : pavage, emboîtement et uniformité des statuts. Cette complexité est avant tout le fait de deux phénomènes concomitants relatifs aux acteurs des recompositions : la métropolisation d’une part qui se caractérise notamment par des comportements individuels et collectifs faits d’appartenances multiples, et la multiplication des acteurs du développement d’autre part (des organismes internationaux à la nébuleuse de la société civile en passant par les collectivités territoriales, les services de l’Etat et les entreprises) qui inscrivent leurs actions dans des périmètres différents et pas toujours articulés. Ainsi la complexité territoriale n’est ni une calamité ni un bienfait, c’est une expression parmi d’autres des mutations sociales et des différentes facettes de la postmodernité.
Notre posture est celle de son acceptation à la fois comme objet pertinent et comme donnée contextuelle, mais pas comme un facteur de résignation en matière d’aménagement et de développement. En effet, si tout ne se joue pas sur le territoire, bien souvent dérisoire face à la mobilité du capital et des hommes, l’enjeu territorial existe et il n’est pas à sommes nulles. Il y a des gagnants et des perdants, de plus, les modèles qui circulent sont tout sauf neutres, ils peuvent promouvoir certaines configurations spatiales et politiques tout en marginalisant d’autres, ils peuvent in fine accroître la capacité ou l’incapacité territoriale.
"

This is the first of two essays in the Bruce Metzger festschrift, edited by J. Harold Ellens, Text and Community, Essay in Commemoration of Bruce M. Metzger, Vol. 1 (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2007), 196-216. Serious errors of interpretation include the facts that: (1) "Antichrist" never occurs in Revelation--only in 1 John and 2 John; (2) the "Antichrists" are mentioned as plural rather than a singular individual--referencing an actualized schism and impending visits of false teachers; (3) their christological errors are different--the first schism refuses to believe in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah/Christ, the false teachers advocate a docetic Christology--refusing to believe Jesus came in the flesh. Therefore, the Antichrists in 1 and 2 John reference two distinctive threats in the late first century with implications for later interpretations.

Feminist dystopia is not isolated from or even antagonistic to the dystopian tradition at large: The history, development and characteristics of feminist dystopianism draw from feminist theory and social critique but also from the ways in which the literary utopia and dystopia have articulated cultural hopes and fears grounded in a critical as- sessment of the present moment. The concept ‘feminism’ as used in dystopian/utopian studies is usually implicitly understood to refer to a critique of social structures or cul- tural patterns that have disadvantaged women. Yet feminism has never been a coherent movement and has changed considerably since the first known critical engagements with the so-called woman question. Feminist dystopia is thus best studied as a nodal point that intersects with dystopian science fiction, feminist theory, and particularly feminist utopian writing.
Feminist speculation about a better world goes back to the earliest examples of uto- pian writing with texts such as Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies (1404/05; cf. Johns 2010: 174). Feminist dystopia emerged in the 1970s from this tradi- tion by importing key elements of the literary dystopia, such as the focus on and exten- sion of repressive structures in the present and the satirical critique of these structures. However, since both classical utopia and dystopia have traditionally been affirmative of gender hierarchies, the feminist dystopia also includes a critique of the genre itself.
My exploration of feminist dystopia in this chapter focuses on its initiating mo- ment in the 1970s. Joanna Russ’s The Female Man and Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time have usually been read as examples of feminist utopian writing (with the notable exception of Booker and Thomas 2009), even though they are, like most femi- nist utopian writing in the 1970s utopian only in part, as Angelika Bammer argued in Partial Visions. I argue here that these two novels can be seen as prototypical feminist dystopian texts in the 1970s, constituting the beginnings of feminist dystopianism in the midst of the utopian renaissance. As such, the two novels have a lot in common: Both present the basic narrative world as dystopia for women; both include a partial utopia and its dystopian nemesis; both show that this utopia is only one of many possi- ble futures that depends on individual and collective action taken in the present mo- ment; and, finally, both novels are grounded in a powerful sense of utopian hope, while also expressing profound pessimism. The way in which these two novels incor- porate and mix science fiction, dystopia, utopia, and realist fiction, deploying the inter- relations and tensions between these genre traditions, undermines the rationalism and transparent storytelling practices of all of these traditions. In the wake of the complex critique articulated in these novels, the 1980s and 1990s produced a number of femi- nist dystopias that responded to cultural transformations by giving the dystopian ele- ment a more prominent presence. However, the paradigm established by Joanna Russ and Marge Piercy has continued to be productive in feminist fictions of the future.

In the light of the psychoanalytic approach, The Road can be read as a novel about a boy’s growing up in a devastated and barren post- apocalyptic world. The novel reveals that having lost his mother and facing the dead wherever he goes with his father, the boy struggles to overcome his fears of death and loss. What is more, in questioning his father’s decisions, he
questions the morality of the world that existed and the one he lives in. Finally, the readers are faced with the boy’s gradual becoming an individual, thus distinguishing himself from the
shadow of his father.

Keywords: fear, Freud's personality theory, psychoanalysis

In his incarnation as 'Morus' in Utopia, Thomas More asserts his profound disagreement with his fictional character, Raphael Hythlodaeus. Whereas Hythlodaeus extols the merits of commonality and the moral value of pleasure, Morus dismisses the whole project as absurdity, or hopeless wishful thinking. This divergence has been variously interpreted, but mostly played down. This paper argues that the civilized, amicable, and yet genuine discord between Raphael Hythlodaeus and Morus is the key to Utopia. We can appreciate its importance only if we understand who Hythlodaeus is, and what the purpose of the dialogue is. We also have to do justice to Thomas More's politics, which were grounded on the authority of the Christian tradition, in the Old and the New Testament. Over the years, Thomas More maintained a very clear and consistent line of thought on the legitimacy of worldly wealth, the responsibilities inherent in its management, the imperative to curb their enjoyment, the temptation of 'business' and greed, the duty of charity, and the value of penance, remorse, prayer, and other kinds of self-inflicted suffering. In A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation, Anthony, the wiser character, conveys Thomas More's relentless praise of pain. Anthony has the last word. So, too, does Morus.

Catalogue of the exhibition held in Milan (December 11, 2012 - March 10, 2013), at Ambrosiana Library and S. Maria delle Grazie Sacristy, with a selection of 44 autograph folios from Leonardo's Codex Atlanticus.
The double theme of the book is articulated in the following sections:
I. Le acque, i venti e le tempeste
II. Narrazioni e figurazioni fantastiche e terrifiche
III. I diluvi
IV. Paesaggi e "macchie""
V. Le profezie

Italian abstract:
Tra la fine del XV e l'inizio del XVI secolo, Leonardo intreccia la speculazione scientifica sui fenomeni meteorologici e sulla turbolenza atmosferica con una fascinazione letteraria e filosofica sul tema dell'ineluttabile disfacimento della materia nei processi di rigenerazione della natura, dando luogo alle sue ultime mirabili "invenzioni", immani e inusitate visioni di distruzione, anticipate da testi profetici in cui si pronostica la fine dei tempi, sulla spinta dei traumatici eventi politici contemporanei.

In the last few years, Native filmmakers have begun drawing explicitly on the science fiction genre. Engaging recent short films depicting noncolonial encounters of the third kind and alternative utopian–dystopian futures, I argue that Native science fiction film provides a creative subversive mode of representation, uniquely positioning indigenous filmmakers to vividly reimagine a multiplicity of futures for their communities while critically addressing contemporary issues. Synthesizing scholarship in visual anthropology, afro and feminist futurism, and indigenous methodologies, I attempt to further develop an indigenous futurist analytical framework as part of a larger argument for increased anthropological engagement with Native futures.

Informal communities of Russian artists and intellectuals during the late Soviet years practiced a “politics of indistinction.” They claimed to be uninterested in anything political and differentiated themselves from ordinary “Soviet citizens,” whether supporters of or dissenters from the system. However, their apolitical lifestyles and pursuits contributed greatly to creating the conditions for making the collapse of the Soviet state imminent. Close examination of one such group, the Necrorealists, raises a set of questions that are central for an understanding of momentous and unexpected social transformations, and of the concept of "politics" more broadly

The novel 1984, George Orwell's nightmarish vision of totalitarianism published after the Second World War, remains relevant in the twenty-first century. Orwell's concerns regarding the abuse of power, the denial of self, and the eradication of both past and future continue to resonate in contemporary discussions of politics and society. Geographers, however, have directed minimal attention to the spatiality embedded within 1984. Accordingly, in this paper I examine the theoretical implications of space, resistance and discipline as manifest in the novel. Drawing on the theoretical insights of Michel Foucault, I detail how the spatial and temporal control of everyday activities serves to discipline spaces within a totalitarian society. Moreover, I suggest that 1984 illustrates how the production of knowledge through the act of writing may forge spaces of resistance within disciplined spaces. This paper contributes, therefore, in two areas, these being resistance geographies and fictive geographies.

This thesis explores three contemporary zombie films, 28 Days Later (2002), Land of the Dead (2005), and Zombieland (2009), released between the years 2000 and 2010, and provides a sociological analysis of the fears in the films and their relation to the social fears present in North American society during that time period.

What we consume in entertainment is directly related to what we believe, fear, and love in our current social existence. Thus, this paper argues that the rise in popularity of zombie films, and zombies in general, is directly connected to our fears and anxieties as a culture, and that the decade 2000-2010 was one of particularly heightened social fears and apocalyptic anxieties. The theories used in this research demonstrate the cycle where our cultural beliefs and values inform our daily fears and understandings of the world, which are then represented in our entertainment and re-interpreted in our consumption of it. The films are dissected using the theories of film critic Sigfried Kracauer, political economist C.B. MacPherson, and film theorist Kirsten Moana Thompson and a process of qualitative content analysis to identify, analyze, and connect the fears in the films with those in the social climate of the decade studied. This paper argues that the drastic increase in popularity of the zombie at the turn of the millennium directly reflects major fears in the decade: of pandemics, of untrustworthy authority, and of the total collapse of social order. We need to pay special attention to our forms of entertainment, as they speak volumes about the social climate in any particular epoch in our history. We may use what we learn in future research and social analysis.

The relationship of human liberty to both external nature and human inner nature entails a complex knot of questions that have long been the subject of intense philosophical discussion. In the modern era, a strong dichotomy developed between these concepts in which human freedom was counterposed to an apparently determinate nature that existed as a valueless
res extensa. In this article, however, the author argues for the presence and vitality of an alternative concept of human liberty, one that relies not on the ownership of property but on nature as a point outside the system of human instrumental control and the hall of mirrors represented by collective solipsism. The author arrives at this point through careful study of the underresearched naturalistic scenes and elements in George Orwell’s highly
influential "1984", drawing out the complex interconnections of nature, liberty, and fulfillment found within them. This study illustrates the usefulness of the dystopian imagination to theorizing relationships between nature and humanity.

Contemporary Paganism’s emphasis on sacred story and narrative has led to an interdependent relationship with popular media. Pagans draw inspiration from fiction and also bring their practices to life in popular novels. Robert Heinlein’s 1961 Stranger in a Strange Land has had a major impact on the practice of ethical nonmonogamy in the Pagan community, an impact that is reflected in Starhawk’s 1993 The Fifth Sacred Thing. Along with liturgical echoes from Stranger, Starhawk’s novel contains sacred sex practices similar to those Heinlein describes. Unlike Heinlein, however, Starhawk is writing from life; The Fifth Sacred Thing reflects the developing real-life norms of her San Francisco-based Pagan community. Both novels also follow the generic conventions of the American utopian novel, a literary form that has influenced communal and millennial movements of the past. Together, Heinlein and Starhawk’s novels demonstrate how fiction can inspire religious practice that then appears again in fiction.

In recent years, the concept of “peak oil”—the moment when global oil production peaks and a train of economic, social, and political catastrophes accompany its subsequent decline—has captured the imagination of a surprisingly large number of Americans as well as scholars and created a quiet, yet intense underground movement. In Peak Oil, Matthew Schneider-Mayerson takes readers deep inside the world of “peakists,” showing how their hopes and fears about the postcarbon future led them to prepare for the social breakdown they foresaw—all of which are fervently discussed and debated via websites, online forums, videos, and novels. By exploring the worldview of peakists, and the unexpected way that the fear of peak oil and climate change transformed many members of this left-leaning group into survivalists, Schneider-Mayerson builds a larger analysis of the rise of libertarianism, the role of oil in modern life, the political impact of digital technologies, the racial and gender dynamics of post-apocalyptic fantasies, and the social organization of environmental denial.

“This is a highly significant, original, and engaging book. Schneider-Mayerson provides a sophisticated analysis of the rise of libertarianism in the United States and articulates well how the struggle to form a collective response reflects a decline of trust in social institutions and the rise of individualism. Peak Oil is well-written, compelling, and very timely. It will no doubt be of interest to readers both inside and outside of the academy.” -- Kari Marie Norgaard, author of Living in Denial: Climate Change, Emotions, and Everyday Life

“Schneider-Mayerson’s inventive and illuminating study of the peak oil movement is just the kind of scholarly intervention we need now to help us grapple fully with the social and political challenges we face. If his exploration of the practices and beliefs of the ‘Peakists’ is cause for worry, it isn’t because of how they view fossil fuels or its environmental impact. It’s in the largely individual response of peak oil advocates to what is of necessity a collective problem. This mainstreaming of a libertarian ethos in the United States and elsewhere—on both right and left—should ring alarm bells. As much an analysis of contemporary US political culture as it is about the politics of climate change, Peak Oil makes for a stellar addition to debates in which we all have a stake today.” --  Imre Szeman, author of Petrocultures: Oil, Politics, Culture

“From Mad Max to Mad Men, this dead-on critique of long held beliefs about masculinity and traditions of American individualism and techno-optimism—all steadily becoming associated with a ‘shift towards libertarianism’—is by turns entertaining, insightful, and troubling. The book clearly outlines how these traditions and beliefs present daunting challenges to communities interested in organizing and implementing effective and timely responses to accelerating global climate change.” -- Joni Adamson, coeditor of American Studies, Ecocriticism, and Citizenship

"Matthew Schneider-Mayerson’s Peak Oil (2015) is a compelling and nuanced account of the peak oil movement in the era of climate crisis. Organized online between 2004 and 2011, the peak oil movement, Schneider-Mayerson argues, can also be thought of as a phenomenon or community of individuals sharing information, but mostly acting alone. In this timely, engaging, well-written, and accessible book, Schneider-Mayerson argues that a libertarian shift in culture within the context of environmental crisis explains the individualistic behavior of peakists even as they, in line with their overwhelmingly liberal political ideologies, recognize the need for collective action. Peak Oil pushes readers to recognize the urgent need for political action on climate change while simultaneously providing a thoughtful and sympathetic explanation for why so many people respond to environmental crisis in individualistic ways. Readers alarmed by climate crisis will connect with peakist impulses toward self-sufficiency while gaining a deeper understanding of the political and cultural milieu that informs political inaction on climate change. Peak Oil offers an in-depth portrait of peakists—who they are, how they compare to the general population, how they became “peak aware,” and what they do with their knowledge. Yet, it also does much more. Through detailed analysis of the history of beliefs about abundance and scarcity, oil production and prices, the libertarian shift, the development of the internet, and American apocalyptic thought, it uses a story about peakists to shed light on broad trends at the intersection of energy, technology, cultural imaginations, masculinity, and political economy. For this reason, it is a useful text for readers in these diverse fields and for those interested in how historical and contemporary trends inform collective capacity for imagining a future within and beyond climate crisis." -- Corrie Gross, Energy Research & Social Science (2017)

"The strength of Peak Oil resides in its judicious, even-handed approach. Schneider-Mayerson neither idealizes nor vilifies his subjects.He commends them for their insights about petro-capitalist constraints, yet he does not hesitate to call out their limitations. For example, in a fascinating final chapter on the racial and gender dynamics of peak oil, he reveals that peakists often imagined a post-oil future as a reversion to a rugged, pioneer, white masculinity that aimed to “make men hard again” (142). This reversion to white patriarchy—what Schneider-Mayerson calls “retrosexuality”—registered cultural anxieties about masculinity and whiteness in an era of feminism, deindustrialization, multiculturalism, and a late capitalist economy dominated by automation and service work. Ultimately, however, Schneider-Mayerson correctly points out that whatever their biases, peakists were attempting to do something extraordinarily difficult: imagine life after petroleum while living in a society fully saturated by it. And today the political fatalism of peakists is unnerving, he concludes, not because it is so rare but because it is so pervasive. The powerful message is that within late petro-capitalism, hope and imagination are in short—but desperately needed—supply." -- Natasha Zaretsky, Environment and Society (2016)

"The intricacy of Peak Oil... makes the book a fascinating window into an American subculture often parodied but rarely studied. With preternatural care, Schneider-Mayerson displays an ability to connect the words of his interlocutors with their broader political and social context that makes the book as a whole an enjoyable reading experience recommended for scholars, undergraduate students, and the public at large." -- Kai Bosworth, Cultural Geographies (2017)

"A demonstration of the ability of American studies to illuminate broader cultural trends beyond self-conscious political ideology... a fascinating look into the development of a left subculture that grew in adherents largely during the Iraq War... the book reaches beyond a small coterie of intellectual influencers to explain how a group of believers can be a microcosm to understand broader currents of individualism and apocalypticism in American culture.” -- Rebecca Hill, American Quarterly (2018)

Mémoire présenté par :
Erwan MOREAU
en vue de l'obtention du diplôme de :
MASTER 2 RECHERCHE
Domaine : Sciences humaines et sociales
Mention : Ethnologie-Sociologie
Spécialité : SOCIOLOGIE
Préparé sous la direction de M. Jean Bruno RENARD, professeur de Sociologie
Juin 2014
Mention obtenue : très bien


Abstract (French) :

Le synonyme le plus proche du terme "monstre" est l'expression « contre-nature » (Aristote, Saint Augustin, Canguilhem, Lascault, Cuny Le Callet, Valton, etc.). Sentence paradoxale s'il en est quand on sait qu'au niveau biologique, il est entendu que rien de ce que produit la Nature ne peut voir le jour indépendamment du respect de ses lois et qu'il est le propre de l'imagination de pouvoir y créer des exceptions.

Mais parallèlement à la Nature, objet de la biologie et de la physique, se trouve une autre « nature » : la « connaissance ordinaire » (Aristote employait pour sa part le terme de « cours ordinaire », « ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολύ » en parlant du statut contre-nature du monstre), cette « chose que l'organisme construit dans le but de créer un ordre dans le flux de l'expérience »

Ainsi, tout monstre peut être traduit comme étant ce qui apparaît contraire à une  « connaissance ordinaire », à une réalité sensible, dans son acception la plus large, c'est-à-dire orientée vers l'esthétique (le plus couramment rattaché à une vision anthropocentrée) et/ou vers l'éthique (intolérance idéologique).

Aussi par le partage des affects que met en œuvre une communauté d'esprits (religieuse, laïque, révolutionnaire, impérialiste, etc.), des éléments « contre-nature » peuvent apparaître à un niveau macrosociologique. Éléments émergeant de l'esprit gnostique et de son succédané l'esprit dogmatique, chacun ayant pour spécificité de mettre en exergue le dualisme entre bien et mal, connaissance et ignorance les entraînant ainsi vers l'ère de la déliquescence, de la décadence, en somme vers les temps eschatologiques et leurs abominations monstrueuses.


Abstract (English) :

The best synonym for the word ‘monster’ is the expression ‘unnatural’’ (Aristote, Saint Augustin, Canguilhem, Lascault, Cuny Le Callet, Valton, etc.). That is a paradoxical sentence - if any - when we know that biologically speaking nothing produced by Nature can exist regardless of the respect of its laws. It is among the characteristics of imagination to create exceptions.

But parallel to the Nature as objet of biology and physic is another kind of ‘nature’: the ‘ordinary knowledge’. (Artistote named it the ‘ordinary course’ (ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολύ) to mention the unnatural aspect of monster), this ‘thing that is produced by the organism to create an order within the experience’s flow’.

Then any monster can be understood as what appears in contrary to an ‘ordinary knowledge’, a ‘sensitive reality’ in every sense, that is to say aesthetics- (mostly associated to an anthropocentred vision) and/or ethicspositioned (ideological intolerance).

And the sharing of affections made by a minds’ community (religious, lay, revolutionary or imperialist, etc.) can reveal some ‘unnatural’ elements at the level of macrosociology. Elements that are emerging from the Gnostic spirit and its substitute: the dogmatic spirit. Each specifically brings out the dualism between good and evil, knowledge and ignorance that leads towards the decay, decline age - in other words towards eschatological times and their monstrous abominations.

There has been an interesting increase, in the last thirty years or so, in the number of dystopian novels published in English. These novels have undoubtedly forced a renewed understanding in the concepts of utopia and dystopia,. This paper, part of my postdoctoral research in literary theory at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, seeks to analyse the forms in which this new form of utopian/dystopian literature explores the contemporary political climate in Great Britain in two novels and one film set in future or
alternative present times. The texts examined here are P.D. James’s The Children of Men (1992) and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (2005), as well as Alfonso Cuarón’s adaptation of James’s novel, Children of Men (2006). One aspect that brings these texts together is the important element I refer to as politics of the transhuman body: social forms of dealing with or regulate corporality in a context of social and political changes in Europe where humanity is defined by a relation to technology with means to eliminate organic flaws.

The institutionalization of Utopia Studies in the last decade is premised upon a specifically aesthetic reception of Ernst Bloch’s theory of the “utopian impulse” during the 1980s and 1990s. A postmodern uneasiness to both left and right formulations of the "End of History" during this period imposes a resistance to concepts of historical and political closure or totality, resulting in a "Utopianism without Utopia". For all the attractiveness of this pan-utopianism, its failure to consider the relation between historical representation and fulfillment renders it consummate with liberalism as a merely inverted conservatism.

In contrast to this specific recuperation of a Bloch, the continuing importance of Walter Benjamin’s theory of the dialectical image and the speculative concept of historical experience which underlies it becomes apparent. The intrusion of the historical Absolute is coded throughout Benjamin’s thought as the eruptive and mortuary figure of catastrophe, which stands as the dialectical counterpart to the utopian wish images of the collective dream. Indeed, the motto under which the Arcades Project was to be constructed derives from Adorno: “Each epoch dreams of itself as annihilated by catastrophe”.

This study examines the significance of the boom of U.S. post-apocalyptic novels after the American Century. This dissertation argues that U.S. post-apocalyptic novels tend to be reactionary and political conservative, but that they can still be read critically for what I call their residues. I approach these novels as residual in three ways: first, in terms of residual social ontology within the post-apocalyptic novel; second, in their residual generic form; and, third, in the residues of their historical present. Residues of Now describes and investigates the field of contestation generated by U.S. post-apocalyptic novels in order to reveal the struggle between their reactionary and progressive logics.

One of the main pillars of posthuman and transhuman thought is the use of technology as a means to ameliorate human life by helping overcome the flaws and limitations of the biological body. The effect of such trends has been central to the development of contemporary, third-turn dystopian novels in English, published in the past thirty or so years. However, one important aspect of such narratives is also their list of transgressive characteristics, distancing them from their modern, second-turn counterparts. The following article aims to discuss how transgressive the ideas of dystopia and transhumanism that form Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam trilogy are, essentially discussing whatever lies at the core of the human condition.

Roland Emmerich's disaster blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow appeals to both rational thinking and emotions as it tells its tale of abrupt and catastrophic climate change, turning current perceptions of risk—anticipated catastrophes, as Ulrich Beck calls them—into audio-visual spectacles that have a direct visceral effect on the viewer. The essay draws connections between five independently conducted audience response studies in the United States, Britain, Germany, and Japan on the one hand, and cognitive approaches to film studies on the other, in order to develop a more comprehensive understanding of how, exactly, The Day After Tomorrow interacts with its viewers’ emotions, perceptions, and cognitions. Emmerich’s film engages its viewers emotionally in both its melodramatic plotline and the mind-boggling spectacle of “natural” disaster. The basic information about climate change it communicates between the lines is thus infused with affect and likely to make an impact on viewers’ perception and cognitive understanding of the issue.

Much post-modern cinematic narrative has been preoccupied with apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic, and dystopian fantasies that closely reflect aspects of our lived reality.  This paper seeks to distinguish the boundaries between films categorized as apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic, and dystopian and to examine some of the most iconic cinematic artifacts in each of the categories to differentiate their parameters and to explore in detail dystopian film through the prism of cultural theory, to better understand the cultural work that specifically dystopia cinema does.  Dystopia film is primarily concerned with the social conditions inherent to patriarchal capitalism in which the narratives simultaneously expose and reproduce social and economic contradictions in an ideological process of repressive tolerance.  Contemporary dystopia films such as In Time (Andrew Nicoll, 2011) and The Purge (James DeMonaco, 2013) criticize the aspects of capitalism that contradict social mythologies in an effort to reconcile these contradictions with a valorizing fantasy of romance and revolution.

Doomsday scenarios. They proliferate in our culture, from economics to ecology, theology to technology, biology to cosmology, James Bond to Slavoj Zizek, Plato's Atlantis to Lars von Trier's Melancholia. With creativity and critical insight, Barry Vacker shows why apocalyptic memes replicate and have built-in survival advantages. He also explains how the doomsdays reveal the deeper challenges facing human existence — the philosophical apocalypse effected by our lack of cosmic meaning in the vast universe.

Have we really embraced our true existence on Spaceship Earth floating in the cosmos of the new millennium? Our calendars say we have passed the year 2000, but have we really entered the new millennium? The End of the World — Again offers an original, exciting, and (for some) terrifying critique of culture in 2012 and beyond.

Available in high quality paperback via Amazon.

The post-apocalyptic has become a fashion; life is ever more precarious; and meaningful resistance is hard to envision. These are the themes of “Three Birds Sing a New Song.” Unlike Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds,” Stephens induces the birds to sing in a darker register. The disintegration of Puerto Rico's social order, accompanied by an environmental disaster, provokes a rethinking of how the issues of Dystopia, Precarity, and Resistance have been theorized in the Global North. The writerly voice fuses literary and ethnographic approaches. Yet the book, grounded in communication studies, sustains a through-line about the need to “confront the condition of trouble without end.” The point of departure is “Teaching Dystopia in the Last Colony,” about translating the post-apocalyptic genre. Part Two, “Rethinking Resistance in the Puerto Rican Crisis,” uses Stuart Hall to examine Spanish-language debate about Puerto Rico’s lack of sovereignty. “Still Life in Motion: After the Apocalypse in Puerto Rico” brings lived precarity into dramatic focus. The book also interweaves smaller set pieces such as student voices on the crisis, and “A Work of National Importance,” an ending reflection about a citizenship ceremony in San Juan conducted in Spanish.

This study investigates the role of human nature and morality which underlay humanity’s obsession with (post-)apocalypse and the fiction concerned with it. It also examines human nature and morality in The Road in the light of Literary Darwinism, also known as Evolutionary Literary Study which its theoretical underpinning is evolutionary psychology. By adopting literary Darwinist approach and apocalyptic thinking, this research examines the (post-)apocalyptic genre and The Road in the light of models of human nature and behavior brought together by evolutionary psychology. The third chapter discusses the importance, history, roots, and meaning of (post-)apocalyptic fiction and its ability to reveal human dreams, anxieties, and fear. It is shown that by playing on universal (natural) and constructed (cultural) fears in their futuristic worlds, serious (post-)apocalyptic authors question human nature and morality when survival is in question. Moreover it demonstrates that (post-)apocalyptic fiction is crucially dependent on evolved properties of the human mind. The imaginative scenes depicted in suchlike novels are products of the human mind, and such scenes ought to be able to reveal something about the minds that produce them and their motives and ethos. The discussions on literary Darwinism and post-apocalyptic genre are practiced in the chapter on Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic The Road. Drawing on theories posited by Joseph Carroll provides the ground to analyze The Road as a construct emanating from McCarthy’s particular world view by using evolutionary conception of human nature as a basic framework within which to define the character of McCarthy’s world view. In addition to assessment of the manner in which McCarthy accords with or runs in tension with basic conception about human nature and morality, this chapter also discovers McCarthy’s basic elemental features of human nature, but in ways channeled and limited by the author’s cultural context and the author’s personal needs and the reason for creating such a post-apocalypse. The influence of McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic world on an audience and the author’s ethos and beliefs are also examined. Based on the analyses presented in this thesis, it is concluded that by drawing a line between culture and nature through lens of Literary Darwinism, and also by emphasizing evolutionary psychology’s conception of human nature and cultural context of the period, this thesis finds that the genre of (post-)apocalypse and McCarthy’s The Road are deeply affected by morality traits, human nature, and universal human fears and needs. Every genre and work of fiction can be analyzed in the light of literary Darwinism. Although a work of fiction is the construct of author’s imagination and it has abundant cultural elements, but the roots of every story traces back to human mind and human nature which in turn are the result of gene-culture coevolution.

Key Words: Evolution, Cormac McCarthy, The Road, literary Darwinism, evolutionary psychology, human nature, morality, culture, (post-)apocalypse, fear.

RE: Facades, illusions & ideological concepts created & promoted by ancient royalty out of necessity; effective creation of an alternate version of reality. It is only by knowing this information that the true nature of ancient texts may be understood correctly. Not knowing, means making incorrect assumptions & conclusions. Important!

In The Year of the Flood (2009), Margaret Atwood sketches out a dystopic, post-apocalyptic scenario after the spreading of a disease that ends by nearly destroying the human race. Two characters, Toby and Ren, are entrusted with the task of making sense of what has happened, connecting the desolation of what remains with an analogous devastated past, in which the Earth appeared as deprived of its natural resources and inhabited by violent, dehumanised people. An attempt to find a solution to this environmental and human degradation before the catastrophe had come from an eco-religious group called God's Gardeners, who had tried to resume Biblical dictates to explain their peculiar bio-ethics. Along with Toby and Ren's memories (they were both Gardeners), the novel also presents a transcription of some oral hymns told by Adam One, the original and brainy leader of the sect, who also re-elaborated the myth of the Flood to prepare his people for the worst. In this paper, I investigate the way in which the Gardeners use and rhetorically exploit the Bible to offer a vision of life that proves to be alternative and yet complementary to the materialistic one expressed by the numerous scientists appearing in the novel. At the same time, I will discuss how Atwood employs and changes some traits of the dystopian fiction in a direction that seems to be aware of the most recent critical debates on ecocriticism.

Despite increased visibility of diets that reduce meat consumption, global trends indicate that Western dietary patterns, particularly the love of meat, are spreading to the developing world. This burgeoning desire for meat is emerging, however, amidst a backdrop of increased awareness that animal agriculture is damaging to our planet. It is one of the largest contributors to global warming, responsible for 14-18% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, as well as toxic run-off, deforestation and environmentally-vulnerable monocultures.
Cultured meat – that is, meat grown from stem cells in a laboratory – is being developed as a potential solution to this pressing and pressurized issue. Marketed as “clean meat,” its laboratory origins imply sterility, yet is it still deeply enmeshed in cultural systems, including issues of anthrozoology. This is further complicated by the fact that currently it is only possible through the use of fetal bovine serum, and is therefore not cruelty-free.
While contemporary human society is still in the beginning stages of developing an ethical framework for this emerging phenomenon, science fiction has long grappled with lab-grown meat: examples include Chicken Little in The Space Merchants (1952) and vat-grown meat in Neuromancer (1984). SF provides a method of situating the ‘food imaginary’ in a historico- cultural context, while the interrelated genre of climate fiction highlights the urgency with which food solutions need to be found. This paper will therefore examine the potential sociocultural implications of cultured meat through readings of a selection of contemporary SF/cli-fi works, including Elizabeth Dougherty’s The Blind Pig (2010), Koert van Mensvoort and Hendrik-Jan Grievink’s The In Vitro Meat Cookbook (2014), and Margaret Atwood’s text Oryx and Crake (2003). It will ask, is lab meat a utopian solution to a climate crisis issue, or does it perpetuate patterns of anthropocentric thinking that are antithetical to a better relationship with the planet?

Usually read as an example of contemporary dystopian (or speculative) fiction, the tensions of posthuman/transhuman philosophies and those of the contemporary notion of the-apocalyptic novels can be, in fact, understood as an attempt to undermine and, also, problematise what the posthuman projects of technological capitalism intend and how it can be possible (if at all) to develop an understanding of a posthuman Anthropocene through the creation of the Crakers, bioengineered hominids created to repopulate the planet after the pandemic known as The Waterless Flood.

Society for Novel Studies Conference 2014

Desert of the Real, Oasis of the Virtual: Technostalgic Pastoral in À Rebours and Ready Player One

Dr. Alf Seegert
Department of English, University of Utah
[email protected]

Paper for Panel 18: FantasyLand, Virtuality, and Speculative Geography

erschien in: Natalie Bayer, Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński, Nora Sternfeld (Hg.), Kuratieren als antirassistische Praxis, edition Angewandte, Verlag de Gruyter, Wien 2017.

Warum überhaupt ausstellen? Eine Antwort aus dem Jahr 2030 ist eine post-apokalyptische Utopie: Eine Gruppe progressiver MuseumarbeiterInnen und AktivistInnen haben in den 20er Jahren des 21. Jahrhunderts ein Museum besetzt. Ich befinde mich als Kuratorin in diesem besetzten Haus und schreibe die Raumtexte für eine Ausstellung über institutionelle Praxen und Kämpfe um Institutionen in den Jahren von 2013-2023. Ich versuche also zu verstehen, wie sich die Situation zugespitzt und wie eine neoliberale Welt sich zunehmend faschisiert hatte. „Wo stehen wir zwischen Aufstand und Abstand?“ frage ich darin skeptisch und dennoch nicht hoffnungslos und handlungsunfähig.

Praca licencjacka napisana pod kierunkiem dra prof. WZ Paula Wilsona …………………………………………………… data i podpis promotora Łódź, 2013 This thesis is dedicated to my supervisor, Paul Wilson. I would like to thank him for patience and his hard work. He was motivating and inspiring me throughout the process of writing this paper, and that is why work with him gave me satisfaction and was a real pleasure.