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Utopian Dreams against the Grain
Series: - Critical Studies, Volume: 44
- Critical Studies, Volume: 44
Author:
We are at once in a compound crisis and an era of what Cornelius Castoriadis called “the retreat from autonomy.” It will be necessary to change, quite radically, the social imaginary so as to provoke a new Age of Utopian Dreaming in which the possibility of a better world can once again appear on the horizon. Utopian Dreams against the Grain lays out the capitalist social imaginary, the utopian task at hand, the utopian dream’s background in literary thought, and – in the conclusion – a practical discussion of climate change and of how transformative thinking can help mitigate the situation to come.
Samuel Day Fassbinder received his Ph.D. in Communication from The Ohio State University, his M.A. in English from Sonoma State University, and his B.A. in Literature from the University of California at Santa Cruz. He teaches English and public speaking online with DeVry University.
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Ecotopian Criticism for a Compound Crisis
1 The Compound Crisis as a Provocation to Think and Act Differently
2 The Dream of Sustainability to Be Found in the Utopian Surplus
3 Ecotopian Criticism to Move the Learning Path Forward
4 Summary of the Book’s Chapters
1 The Social Imaginary and the Utopian Surplus
1 The Capitalist Social Imaginary and Its Historical Background
2 Utopia as the Imaginary Goal of the Utopian Dream
3 Conceptual Contents of the Utopian Surplus
4 The Dominant Utopian Dream – the Dream of the Utopia of Money in Its Marriage to Technology
5 Putting the Pieces Together: Complete Surplus Utopian Dreams Examined
2 From the Utopian Dream to the Idolum to the Counter-Idolum
1 Introduction: the Idolum as a Pseudo-environment
2 Environmentalist Idola
3 The Idolum of the People: the Socialist Country
4 A Feminist Idolum: the Society of Women
5 A Too-Brief Conclusion
The Long March through the Written Word: an Introduction to Chapters 3 through 6
3 Aldous Huxley and the Learning Path
1 Introduction: From the Early Huxley to the Later Huxley
2 Huxley’s Views on Education
3 Education within Huxley’s Utopias
4 Huxley’s Self-Education about Political Economy
5 Huxley’s Novels of Ideas as Educational Texts
6 Conclusion: about Educational Uses of Huxley’s Writings
4 Paulo Freire and a Curriculum for Praxis
1 Introduction: Mainstream School Curriculum as Unreflective Stuff
2 Paulo Freire as a Historical Advocate of Education for Utopian Dreaming
3 Freirean Pedagogy as Dependent upon the Social Imaginary
4 In Hopes of Creating an Educational Situation Today
5 Conclusion: a Freirean Curriculum for Utopian Dreaming
5 Karl Marx and Futures Studies
1 Introduction
2 Futures Studies as Prediction-Plus
3 Canonical Mass-Market Futures Studies: the 2010s
4 Canonical Mass-Market Futures Studies: Forecasting and Backcasting
5 The Marx Utopia as Found within the Critique of Political Economy
6 The Mastery of Value Outside of Manifesto Futurism
7 Afterthought: Reshaping the Investor Utopia
6 Margaret Atwood and “Ustopia”
1 The Pandemic of Capitalism and the Social Imaginary
2 Dystopian Non-fiction in the Compound Crisis
3 The Maddaddam Trilogy as “Ustopia” or Dystopia with Utopias Within
4 Conclusion
Conclusion: Climate Change Mitigation in Fantasy and Reality
1 Introduction and Book Review: Ayana Elizabeth Johnson’s What If We Get It Right?
2 Climate Change and Climate Change Mitigation
3 Statement of the Problem
4 The Valuation of Nature as a Collective Fantasy
5 The Commodity Fetishism Problem in Climate Change Mitigation
6 Climate Change in the Fantasy Architecture of “Sustainable Capitalism”
7 Utopian Dreams and Climate Change Mitigation
8 Conclusion to the Conclusion: Practical Climate Change Mitigation in Utopian Relief
Index
Introduction: Ecotopian Criticism for a Compound Crisis
1 The Compound Crisis as a Provocation to Think and Act Differently
2 The Dream of Sustainability to Be Found in the Utopian Surplus
3 Ecotopian Criticism to Move the Learning Path Forward
4 Summary of the Book’s Chapters
1 The Social Imaginary and the Utopian Surplus
1 The Capitalist Social Imaginary and Its Historical Background
2 Utopia as the Imaginary Goal of the Utopian Dream
3 Conceptual Contents of the Utopian Surplus
4 The Dominant Utopian Dream – the Dream of the Utopia of Money in Its Marriage to Technology
5 Putting the Pieces Together: Complete Surplus Utopian Dreams Examined
2 From the Utopian Dream to the Idolum to the Counter-Idolum
1 Introduction: the Idolum as a Pseudo-environment
2 Environmentalist Idola
3 The Idolum of the People: the Socialist Country
4 A Feminist Idolum: the Society of Women
5 A Too-Brief Conclusion
The Long March through the Written Word: an Introduction to Chapters 3 through 6
3 Aldous Huxley and the Learning Path
1 Introduction: From the Early Huxley to the Later Huxley
2 Huxley’s Views on Education
3 Education within Huxley’s Utopias
4 Huxley’s Self-Education about Political Economy
5 Huxley’s Novels of Ideas as Educational Texts
6 Conclusion: about Educational Uses of Huxley’s Writings
4 Paulo Freire and a Curriculum for Praxis
1 Introduction: Mainstream School Curriculum as Unreflective Stuff
2 Paulo Freire as a Historical Advocate of Education for Utopian Dreaming
3 Freirean Pedagogy as Dependent upon the Social Imaginary
4 In Hopes of Creating an Educational Situation Today
5 Conclusion: a Freirean Curriculum for Utopian Dreaming
5 Karl Marx and Futures Studies
1 Introduction
2 Futures Studies as Prediction-Plus
3 Canonical Mass-Market Futures Studies: the 2010s
4 Canonical Mass-Market Futures Studies: Forecasting and Backcasting
5 The Marx Utopia as Found within the Critique of Political Economy
6 The Mastery of Value Outside of Manifesto Futurism
7 Afterthought: Reshaping the Investor Utopia
6 Margaret Atwood and “Ustopia”
1 The Pandemic of Capitalism and the Social Imaginary
2 Dystopian Non-fiction in the Compound Crisis
3 The Maddaddam Trilogy as “Ustopia” or Dystopia with Utopias Within
4 Conclusion
Conclusion: Climate Change Mitigation in Fantasy and Reality
1 Introduction and Book Review: Ayana Elizabeth Johnson’s What If We Get It Right?
2 Climate Change and Climate Change Mitigation
3 Statement of the Problem
4 The Valuation of Nature as a Collective Fantasy
5 The Commodity Fetishism Problem in Climate Change Mitigation
6 Climate Change in the Fantasy Architecture of “Sustainable Capitalism”
7 Utopian Dreams and Climate Change Mitigation
8 Conclusion to the Conclusion: Practical Climate Change Mitigation in Utopian Relief
Index
Graduate students and college professors, though this book could be used in an undergraduate course by a sufficiently organized professor.