Utopia Beyond Capitalism in Contemporary Literature
Author | : Raphael Kabo |
Publisher | : Bloomsbury Publishing |
Total Pages | : 209 |
Release | : 2023-06-15 |
ISBN-10 | : 9781350288560 |
ISBN-13 | : 135028856X |
Rating | : 4/5 (60 Downloads) |
Book excerpt: Featuring readings of contemporary utopian poetry and fiction from authors such as Juliana Spahr, Mohsin Hamid, Bong Joon-ho, Kim Stanley Robinson, Lidia Yukavitch, and Cory Doctorow, this book investigates the commons - a form of organisation based on collectivity, communalism and sharing - as a type of transition between capitalist precarity and crisis and anti-capitalist futures. Each of the texts under examination was written in opposition to a particular crisis of the capitalist present - inequality, political representation, mobility, and climate change - and develops a particular mode of utopian 'commoning'. Through its examination of these writers, crises and texts, this book reaffirms the use of utopianism as a tool for generating and representing alternative futures for a world in the midst of ongoing planetary crisis.