The New Utopian Politics Of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed

by Davis, Laurence; Stillman, Peter; Burns, Tony; Curtis, Claire; Davis, Laurence; Elliot, Winter; Ferns, Chris; Hamner, Everett; Le Guin, Ursula K.; Plaw, Avery; Reynolds, Andrew; Rigsby, Ellen; Rodgers, Jennifer; Sabia, Dan; Somay, Bülent; Spencer, Douglas

• ISBN13: 9780739108628
• ISBN10: 073910862X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-11-22
• Publisher: Lexington Books

Summary

The Dispossessed has been described by political theorist Andr Gorz as The most striking description I know of the seductions--and snares--of self-managed communist or, in other words, anarchist society. However this claim, as well as the political, social, and cultural importance of the novel, remain woefully under-explored to this day. New Utopian Politics of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed, an edited collection of original essays on Le Guin's The Dispossessed represents a thorough exploration of the political ramifications of this work by a wide interdisciplinary swath of scholars from around the world.

Table of Contents

Editorial Note	vii
Introduction	ix
Laurence Davis
Part I. Open-Ended Utopian Politics
1 The Dynamic and Revolutionary Utopia of Ursula K. Le Guin	3	(34)
Laurence Davis
2 Worlds Apart: Ursula K. Le Guin and the Possibility of Method	37	(18)
Simon Stow
Part II. Post-Consumerist Politics
3 The Dispossessed as Ecological Political Theory	55	(20)
Peter G. Stillman
4 Ursula K. Le Guin, Herbert Marcuse, and the Fate of Utopia in the Postmodern	75	(20)
Andrew Reynolds
5 The Alien Comes Home: Getting Past the Twin Planets of Possession and Austerity in Le Guin's The Dispossessed	95	(16)
Douglas Spencer
Part III. Anarchist Politics
6 Individual and Community in Le Guin's The Dispossessed	111	(18)
Dan Sabia
7 The Need for Walls: Privacy, Community, and Freedom in The Dispossessed	129	(20)
Mark Tunick
8 Breaching Invisible Walls: Individual Anarchy in The Dispossessed	149	(18)
Winter Elliott
Part IV. Temporal Politics
9 Time and the Measure of the Political Animal	167	(14)
Ellen M. Rigsby
10 Fulfillment as a Function of Time, or the Ambiguous Process of Utopia	181	(14)
Jennifer Rodgers
11 Science and Politics in The Dispossessed: Le Guin and the "Science Wars"	195	(24)
Tony Burns
Part V. Revolutionary Politics
12 The Gap in the Wall: Partnership, Physics, and Politics in The Dispossessed	219	(14)
Everett L. Hamner
13 From Ambiguity to Self-Reflexivity: Revolutionizing Fantasy Space	233	(16)
Bülent Somay
14 Future Conditional or Future Perfect? The Dispossessed and Permanent Revolution	249	(16)
Chris Ferns
Part VI. Open-Ended Utopian Politics
15 Ambiguous Choices: Skepticism as a Grounding for Utopia	265	(18)
Claire P. Curtis
16 Empty Hands: Communication, Pluralism, and Community in Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed	283	(22)
Avery Plaw
A Response, by Ansible,from Tau Ceti	305	(4)
Ursula K. Le Guin
Further Reading	309	(2)
Index	311	(10)
About the Contributors	321