Description
Berghahn Books Thinking Utopia Steps into Other Worlds 2005 Edition by Joern Rusen, Michael Fehr, Thomas W. Rieger
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 IllustrationsPreface and AcknowledgementsIntroductionJoern Rusen, Michael Fehr and Thomas W. RiegerChapter 1. The Necessity of Utopian Thinking: A Cross-National PerspectiveLyman Tower SargentPART I: POLITICS, CONSTRUCTION AND FUNCTIONS OF UTOPIAN THINKINGChapter 2. Aspects of the Western Utopian TraditionKrishan KumarChapter 3. Visions of the FutureMichael ThompsonChapter 4. Utopia, Contractualism, Human RightsRichard SaageChapter 5. On the Construction of Worlds: Technology and Economy in European UtopiasWolfgang PircherPART II: ARTIFICIAL WORLDS AND THE 'NEW MAN'Chapter 6. Bodies in Utopia and Utopian Bodies in Imperial ChinaDorothy KoChapter 7. Science, Technology and Utopia: Perspectives of a Computer-Assisted Evolution of HumankindKlaus MainzerChapter 8. 'Thinking about the Unthinkable': The Virtual as a Place of UtopiaClaus PiasChapter 9. Natural Utopianism in Everyday Life Practice - An Elementary Theoretical ModelUlrich OevermannPART III: MUSEUM AS UTOPIAN LABORATORYChapter 10. Haunted by Things: Utopias and Their ConsequencesDonald PreziosiChapter 11. Art - Museum - Utopia: Five Themes on an Epistemological Construction SiteMichael FehrChapter 12. Art, Science, Utopia in the Early Modern PeriodWolfgang BraungartChapter 13. UtopiaryRachel WeissPART IV: UTOPIA AS A MEDIUM OF CULTURAL COMMUNICATIONChapter 14. The Utopian Vision, East and WestZhang LongxiChapter 15. Trauma: A Dystopia of the SpiritMichael S. RothChapter 16. From Revolutionary to Catastrophic UtopiaSlavoj ZizekChapter 17. The Narrative Staging of Image and Counter-Image: On the Poetics of Literary UtopiasWilhelm VosskampChapter 18. Rethinking Utopia: A Plea for a Culture of InspirationJoern RusenNotes on ContributorsIndex