An American Utopia ─ Dual Power and the Universal Army

Controversial manifesto by acclaimed cultural theorist debated by leading writers

Fredric Jameson’s path-breaking essay An American Utopia radically questions standard leftist notions of an emancipated society, advocating—among other things—universal conscription as the model for the communist reorganization of society, fully acknowledging envy and resentment as the central problem of a communist society, and rejecting the dreams of overcoming the division between work and leisure. Endorsing the axiom that to change the world one should begin by changing our dreams about how we imagine an emancipated society, Jameson’s text is ideally placed to trigger a debate on possible and imaginable alternatives to global capitalism. In addition to Jameson’s essay, the volume brings reactions to it by philosophers and political and cultural analysts, as well as an epilogue from Jameson. Many will be appalled at what they will encounter—there will be blood. But what if one has to spill such (ideological) blood to give the left a new chance?

Contributors include Kim Stanley Robinson, Jodi Dean, Saroj Giri, Agon Hamza, Kojin Karatani, Frank Ruda, Alberto Toscano, Kathi Weeks, and Slavoj iek.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Fredric Jameson is Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature at Duke University. The author of numerous books, he has over the last three decades developed a richly nuanced vision of Western culture's relation to political economy. He was a recipient of the 2008 Holberg International Memorial Prize. He is the author of many books, includingPostmodernism, Or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, The Cultural Turn, A Singular Modernity, The Modernist Papers,Archaeologies of the Future, Brecht and Method, Ideologies of Theory, Valences of the Dialectic,The Hegel Variations and Representing Capital.

Slavoj iek is a Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic. He is a professor at the European Graduate School, International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, Birkbeck College, University of London, and a sen-ior researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. His books include Living in the End Times, First as Tragedy, Then as Farce, In Defense of Lost Causes, four volumes of theEssential iek, and many more.


From the Trade Paperback edition.