Thinking Utopia

by Rusen, Jorn; Fehr, Michael; Rieger, Thomas W.; Fehr, Ruesen

• ISBN13: 9781571814401
• ISBN10: 157181440X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-06-01
• Publisher: Berghahn Books

Summary

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.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	vii
Preface and Acknowledgements	ix
Jörn Rüsen, Michael Fehr and Thomas W. Rieger
1. The Necessity of Utopian Thinking: A Cross-National Perspective	1	(16)
Lyman Tower Sargent
Part I: Politics, Construction and Functions of Utopian Thinking
2. Aspects of the Western Utopian Tradition	17	(15)
Krishan Kumar
3. Visions of the Future	32	(21)
Michael Thompson
4. Utopia, Contractualism, Human Rights	53	(14)
Richard Saage
5. On the Construction of Worlds: Technology and Economy in European Utopias	67	(22)
Wolfgang Pircher
Part II: Artificial Worlds and the 'New Man'
6. Bodies in Utopia and Utopian Bodies in Imperial China	89	(15)
Dorothy Ko
7. Science, Technology and Utopia: Perspectives of a Computer-Assisted Evolution of Humankind	104	(16)
Klaus Mainzer
8. 'Thinking about the Unthinkable': The Virtual as a Place of Utopia	120	(16)
Claus Pias
9. Natural Utopianism in Everyday Life Practice - An Elementary Theoretical Model	136
Ulrich Oevermann
Part III: Museum as Utopian Laboratory
10. Haunted by Things: Utopias and Their Consequences	151	(18)
Donald Preziosi
11. Art - Museum - Utopia: Five Themes on an Epistemological Construction Site	169	(5)
Michael Fehr
12. Art, Science, Utopia in the Early Modern Period	174	(16)
Wolfgang Braungart
13. Utopiary	190	(17)
Rachel Weiss
Part IV: Utopia as a Medium of Cultural Communication
14. The Utopian Vision, East and West	207	(23)
Zhang Longxi
15. Trauma: A Dystopia of the Spirit	230	(17)
Michael S. Roth
16. From Revolutionary to Catastrophic Utopia	247	(16)
Slavoj Zizek
17. The Narrative Staging of Image and Counter-Image: On the Poetics of Literary Utopias	263	(13)
Wilhelm Vosskamp
18. Rethinking Utopia: A Plea for a Culture of Inspiration	276	(7)
Jörn Rüsen
Notes on Contributors	283	(10)
Index	293