Spectres of Utopia

We are haunted by the brief time after the demise of the Soviet Union and before 9/11. There was no enemy, life seemed to be on track with liberal capitalism, and there seemed to be not only utopian but eutopian. Now, the global financial collapse and the events caused by terrorists seem to turn us to dystopia. The contributors of these twenty-two essays believe there is still a bit of eutopia, believe only in dystopia, or believe the brief utopian period was a confusing sham. They examine the concept of theorizing utopianism, think about utopianism, consider utopia and the public sphere, or question how to "write" dystopia/utopia. Individual topics include the influence of the twenty-first century on theorizing utopianism, a plea for prioritizing, the utopia of the Apocalypse, the biblical code, varieties of Lacanian anti-utopianism, political myth in globalization, a matter of perception between utopia and dystopia, the kibbutz movement, building an American utopia, Warsaw and the memory of/in the ruins, reimagining belongings, spaces in film, theses on synecdoche and utopia, Nesbit's garden cities, Kipling's male utopia, Terlikowski, Bane's Song of Stone, and On the Beach and The Sea and Summer as two Australian dystopias. Annotation c2014 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Artur Blaim is Professor of English Literature, University of Gdansk, author of books and articles on English utopian fiction, desert island narratives, and cultural semiotics, co-editor (with Ludmila Gruszewska-Blaim) of Imperfect Worlds and Dystopian Narratives in Contemporary Cinema.
Ludmila Gruszewska-Blaim is Associate Professor of English and American Studies, University of Gdansk; author and co-editor of books on 20th century poetry and prose, literary theory, fictional worlds in literature and cinema.