Author: Joy Charnley
Publisher: Peter Lang Gmbh, Internationaler Verlag Der Wissenschaften
ISBN: 9783906766645
Category : Conservatism
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
The constitutional reform of 1848, which created the present political structures and legal system of Switzerland, bordered on the ideal in the regulation of human affairs, but has been adjusted over the years in the light of changing circumstances. Arguably, the political arrangements which enable the cultures of Switzerland to live together in relative harmony can be viewed in the year 2000, when Europe remains scarred by repression and violence between ethnic and language groups, as being closer to Utopia than arrangements obtaining in other places. The essays in this third volume of Occasional Papers in Swiss Studies discuss differing notions of Utopia from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries in relation to Switzerland and the often chastening confrontation of these notions with reality. Following on the constitutional reform put in place in 2000, Visions of Utopia in Switzerland aims to set in context the current debate about the kind of society Switzerland wishes to become - isolationist or open to Europe, narrowly traditional or widely multicultural.
Visions of Utopia in Switzerland
Author: Joy Charnley
Publisher: Peter Lang Gmbh, Internationaler Verlag Der Wissenschaften
ISBN: 9783906766645
Category : Conservatism
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
The constitutional reform of 1848, which created the present political structures and legal system of Switzerland, bordered on the ideal in the regulation of human affairs, but has been adjusted over the years in the light of changing circumstances. Arguably, the political arrangements which enable the cultures of Switzerland to live together in relative harmony can be viewed in the year 2000, when Europe remains scarred by repression and violence between ethnic and language groups, as being closer to Utopia than arrangements obtaining in other places. The essays in this third volume of Occasional Papers in Swiss Studies discuss differing notions of Utopia from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries in relation to Switzerland and the often chastening confrontation of these notions with reality. Following on the constitutional reform put in place in 2000, Visions of Utopia in Switzerland aims to set in context the current debate about the kind of society Switzerland wishes to become - isolationist or open to Europe, narrowly traditional or widely multicultural.
Publisher: Peter Lang Gmbh, Internationaler Verlag Der Wissenschaften
ISBN: 9783906766645
Category : Conservatism
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
The constitutional reform of 1848, which created the present political structures and legal system of Switzerland, bordered on the ideal in the regulation of human affairs, but has been adjusted over the years in the light of changing circumstances. Arguably, the political arrangements which enable the cultures of Switzerland to live together in relative harmony can be viewed in the year 2000, when Europe remains scarred by repression and violence between ethnic and language groups, as being closer to Utopia than arrangements obtaining in other places. The essays in this third volume of Occasional Papers in Swiss Studies discuss differing notions of Utopia from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries in relation to Switzerland and the often chastening confrontation of these notions with reality. Following on the constitutional reform put in place in 2000, Visions of Utopia in Switzerland aims to set in context the current debate about the kind of society Switzerland wishes to become - isolationist or open to Europe, narrowly traditional or widely multicultural.
Victorian Visions of Suburban Utopia
Author: Nathaniel Robert Walker
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192605860
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 432
Book Description
The rise of suburbs and disinvestment from cities have been defining features of life in many countries over the course of the twentieth century. In Victorian Visions of Suburban Utopia, Nathaniel Walker asks: why did we abandon our dense, complex urban places and seek to find "the best of the city and the country" in the flowery suburbs? While looking back at the architecture and urban design of the 1800s offers some answers, Walker argues that a great missing piece of the story can be found in Victorian utopian literature. The replacement of cities with high-tech suburbs was repeatedly imagined and breathlessly described in the socialist dreams and science-fiction fantasies of dozens of British and American authors. Some of these visionaries — such as Robert Owen, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Edward Bellamy, William Morris, Ebenezer Howard, and H. G. Wells — are enduringly famous, while others were street vendors or amateur chemists who have been all but forgotten. Together, they fashioned strange and beautiful imaginary worlds built of synthetic gemstones, lacy metal colonnades, and unbreakable glass, staffed by robotic servants and teeming with flying carriages. As varied as their futuristic visions could be, Walker reveals how most of them were unified by a single, desperate plea: for humanity to have a future worth living, we must abandon our smoky, poor, chaotic Babylonian cities for a life in shimmering gardens.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192605860
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 432
Book Description
The rise of suburbs and disinvestment from cities have been defining features of life in many countries over the course of the twentieth century. In Victorian Visions of Suburban Utopia, Nathaniel Walker asks: why did we abandon our dense, complex urban places and seek to find "the best of the city and the country" in the flowery suburbs? While looking back at the architecture and urban design of the 1800s offers some answers, Walker argues that a great missing piece of the story can be found in Victorian utopian literature. The replacement of cities with high-tech suburbs was repeatedly imagined and breathlessly described in the socialist dreams and science-fiction fantasies of dozens of British and American authors. Some of these visionaries — such as Robert Owen, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Edward Bellamy, William Morris, Ebenezer Howard, and H. G. Wells — are enduringly famous, while others were street vendors or amateur chemists who have been all but forgotten. Together, they fashioned strange and beautiful imaginary worlds built of synthetic gemstones, lacy metal colonnades, and unbreakable glass, staffed by robotic servants and teeming with flying carriages. As varied as their futuristic visions could be, Walker reveals how most of them were unified by a single, desperate plea: for humanity to have a future worth living, we must abandon our smoky, poor, chaotic Babylonian cities for a life in shimmering gardens.
Black Utopia
Author: Alex Zamalin
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231547250
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 151
Book Description
Within the history of African American struggle against racist oppression that often verges on dystopia, a hidden tradition has depicted a transfigured world. Daring to speculate on a future beyond white supremacy, black utopian artists and thinkers offer powerful visions of ways of being that are built on radical concepts of justice and freedom. They imagine a new black citizen who would inhabit a world that soars above all existing notions of the possible. In Black Utopia, Alex Zamalin offers a groundbreaking examination of African American visions of social transformation and their counterutopian counterparts. Considering figures associated with racial separatism, postracialism, anticolonialism, Pan-Africanism, and Afrofuturism, he argues that the black utopian tradition continues to challenge American political thought and culture. Black Utopia spans black nationalist visions of an ideal Africa, the fiction of W. E. B. Du Bois, and Sun Ra’s cosmic mythology of alien abduction. Zamalin casts Samuel R. Delany and Octavia E. Butler as political theorists and reflects on the antiutopian challenges of George S. Schuyler and Richard Wright. Their thought proves that utopianism, rather than being politically immature or dangerous, can invigorate political imagination. Both an inspiring intellectual history and a critique of present power relations, this book suggests that, with democracy under siege across the globe, the black utopian tradition may be our best hope for combating injustice.
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231547250
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 151
Book Description
Within the history of African American struggle against racist oppression that often verges on dystopia, a hidden tradition has depicted a transfigured world. Daring to speculate on a future beyond white supremacy, black utopian artists and thinkers offer powerful visions of ways of being that are built on radical concepts of justice and freedom. They imagine a new black citizen who would inhabit a world that soars above all existing notions of the possible. In Black Utopia, Alex Zamalin offers a groundbreaking examination of African American visions of social transformation and their counterutopian counterparts. Considering figures associated with racial separatism, postracialism, anticolonialism, Pan-Africanism, and Afrofuturism, he argues that the black utopian tradition continues to challenge American political thought and culture. Black Utopia spans black nationalist visions of an ideal Africa, the fiction of W. E. B. Du Bois, and Sun Ra’s cosmic mythology of alien abduction. Zamalin casts Samuel R. Delany and Octavia E. Butler as political theorists and reflects on the antiutopian challenges of George S. Schuyler and Richard Wright. Their thought proves that utopianism, rather than being politically immature or dangerous, can invigorate political imagination. Both an inspiring intellectual history and a critique of present power relations, this book suggests that, with democracy under siege across the globe, the black utopian tradition may be our best hope for combating injustice.
Max Nettlau’s Utopian Vision
Author:
Publisher: Anthem Press
ISBN: 1785279173
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 209
Book Description
Max Nettlau’s Utopian Vision gives a historically grounded presentation of the entire literature of utopianism. Nettlau shows an encyclopedic knowledge of the subject. He passionately believes that the value of utopian thinking and class struggle should not be underestimated as utopian desire exists in all of us. Utopian thinking, according to Nettlau, stimulates the imagination and awakens the desire to attain a better life for everyone. Without it, human progress is impossible.
Publisher: Anthem Press
ISBN: 1785279173
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 209
Book Description
Max Nettlau’s Utopian Vision gives a historically grounded presentation of the entire literature of utopianism. Nettlau shows an encyclopedic knowledge of the subject. He passionately believes that the value of utopian thinking and class struggle should not be underestimated as utopian desire exists in all of us. Utopian thinking, according to Nettlau, stimulates the imagination and awakens the desire to attain a better life for everyone. Without it, human progress is impossible.
Utopia Method Vision
Author: Tom Moylan
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9783039109128
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 350
Book Description
This collection addresses the ways in which the contributors approach their study of the objects and practices of utopianism (understood as social anticipations and visions produced through texts and social experiments) and of how, in turn, those objects and practices have shaped their intellectual work and research perspectives.
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9783039109128
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 350
Book Description
This collection addresses the ways in which the contributors approach their study of the objects and practices of utopianism (understood as social anticipations and visions produced through texts and social experiments) and of how, in turn, those objects and practices have shaped their intellectual work and research perspectives.
The Last Utopia
Author: Samuel Moyn
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674256522
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 346
Book Description
Human rights offer a vision of international justice that today’s idealistic millions hold dear. Yet the very concept on which the movement is based became familiar only a few decades ago when it profoundly reshaped our hopes for an improved humanity. In this pioneering book, Samuel Moyn elevates that extraordinary transformation to center stage and asks what it reveals about the ideal’s troubled present and uncertain future. For some, human rights stretch back to the dawn of Western civilization, the age of the American and French Revolutions, or the post–World War II moment when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was framed. Revisiting these episodes in a dramatic tour of humanity’s moral history, The Last Utopia shows that it was in the decade after 1968 that human rights began to make sense to broad communities of people as the proper cause of justice. Across eastern and western Europe, as well as throughout the United States and Latin America, human rights crystallized in a few short years as social activism and political rhetoric moved it from the hallways of the United Nations to the global forefront. It was on the ruins of earlier political utopias, Moyn argues, that human rights achieved contemporary prominence. The morality of individual rights substituted for the soiled political dreams of revolutionary communism and nationalism as international law became an alternative to popular struggle and bloody violence. But as the ideal of human rights enters into rival political agendas, it requires more vigilance and scrutiny than when it became the watchword of our hopes.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674256522
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 346
Book Description
Human rights offer a vision of international justice that today’s idealistic millions hold dear. Yet the very concept on which the movement is based became familiar only a few decades ago when it profoundly reshaped our hopes for an improved humanity. In this pioneering book, Samuel Moyn elevates that extraordinary transformation to center stage and asks what it reveals about the ideal’s troubled present and uncertain future. For some, human rights stretch back to the dawn of Western civilization, the age of the American and French Revolutions, or the post–World War II moment when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was framed. Revisiting these episodes in a dramatic tour of humanity’s moral history, The Last Utopia shows that it was in the decade after 1968 that human rights began to make sense to broad communities of people as the proper cause of justice. Across eastern and western Europe, as well as throughout the United States and Latin America, human rights crystallized in a few short years as social activism and political rhetoric moved it from the hallways of the United Nations to the global forefront. It was on the ruins of earlier political utopias, Moyn argues, that human rights achieved contemporary prominence. The morality of individual rights substituted for the soiled political dreams of revolutionary communism and nationalism as international law became an alternative to popular struggle and bloody violence. But as the ideal of human rights enters into rival political agendas, it requires more vigilance and scrutiny than when it became the watchword of our hopes.
The Utopia of Film
Author: Christopher Pavsek
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231530811
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
The German filmmaker Alexander Kluge has long promoted cinema's relationship with the goals of human emancipation. Jean-Luc Godard and Filipino director Kidlat Tahimik also believe in cinema's ability to bring about what Theodor W. Adorno once called a "redeemed world." Situating the films of Godard, Tahimik, and Kluge within debates over social revolution, utopian ideals, and the unrealized potential of utopian thought and action, Christopher Pavsek showcases the strengths, weaknesses, and undeniable impact of their utopian visions on film's political evolution. He discusses Godard's Alphaville (1965) against Germany Year 90 Nine-Zero (1991) and JLG/JLG: Self-portrait in December (1994), and he conducts the first scholarly reading of Film Socialisme (2010). He considers Tahimik's virtually unknown masterpiece, I Am Furious Yellow (1981–1991), along with Perfumed Nightmare (1977) and Turumba (1983); and he constructs a dialogue between Kluge's Brutality in Stone (1961) and Yesterday Girl (1965) and his later The Assault of the Present on the Rest of Time (1985) and Fruits of Trust (2009).
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231530811
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
The German filmmaker Alexander Kluge has long promoted cinema's relationship with the goals of human emancipation. Jean-Luc Godard and Filipino director Kidlat Tahimik also believe in cinema's ability to bring about what Theodor W. Adorno once called a "redeemed world." Situating the films of Godard, Tahimik, and Kluge within debates over social revolution, utopian ideals, and the unrealized potential of utopian thought and action, Christopher Pavsek showcases the strengths, weaknesses, and undeniable impact of their utopian visions on film's political evolution. He discusses Godard's Alphaville (1965) against Germany Year 90 Nine-Zero (1991) and JLG/JLG: Self-portrait in December (1994), and he conducts the first scholarly reading of Film Socialisme (2010). He considers Tahimik's virtually unknown masterpiece, I Am Furious Yellow (1981–1991), along with Perfumed Nightmare (1977) and Turumba (1983); and he constructs a dialogue between Kluge's Brutality in Stone (1961) and Yesterday Girl (1965) and his later The Assault of the Present on the Rest of Time (1985) and Fruits of Trust (2009).
Switzerland in Perspective
Author: Janet E. Hilowitz
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313389446
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 246
Book Description
This volume is the only collection of essays available in English on modern Swiss economy, society, and culture. Twelve of Switzerland's most eminent social scientists express their ideas and viewpoints about their nation's past, present, and likely future in a readable and informative way. The book provides an interesting and current description and analysis of many aspects of this unique and little known country--its work and leisure, its political and economic structure, its educational system, changes affecting its women, families, and young people, how the Swiss view themselves and are viewed by others, and geographically varied life spaces and styles such as those of its cities and its more traditional mountain regions. The essays are substantive and critical, offering much more than a mere appreciation of this picture-postcard country. In the introduction, Hilowitz summarizes the main themes of the various essays and ties them together. The author of the first essay presents the principal features of Swiss urbanization and discusses recent changes which have affected the human settlement pattern. In the second essay, the broad institutional diffusion of power and decision making is explored. Three essays deal with various aspects of the Swiss workplace: trade unions, the work ethic, and women in the working world. Youth and their life prospects, as well as the educational system, are critically discussed in two essays. The authors of the essay on the structure and functioning of the family examine marriage, divorce, and styles of interaction within the family. Separate essays assess the life styles and social classes of the elderly, crime and crime control, changes affecting the rural population, and Switzerland's image abroad. Switzerland in Perspective will be an excellent resource for those interested in the broader scholarly or practical implications of Swiss economic, social, and political arrangements.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313389446
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 246
Book Description
This volume is the only collection of essays available in English on modern Swiss economy, society, and culture. Twelve of Switzerland's most eminent social scientists express their ideas and viewpoints about their nation's past, present, and likely future in a readable and informative way. The book provides an interesting and current description and analysis of many aspects of this unique and little known country--its work and leisure, its political and economic structure, its educational system, changes affecting its women, families, and young people, how the Swiss view themselves and are viewed by others, and geographically varied life spaces and styles such as those of its cities and its more traditional mountain regions. The essays are substantive and critical, offering much more than a mere appreciation of this picture-postcard country. In the introduction, Hilowitz summarizes the main themes of the various essays and ties them together. The author of the first essay presents the principal features of Swiss urbanization and discusses recent changes which have affected the human settlement pattern. In the second essay, the broad institutional diffusion of power and decision making is explored. Three essays deal with various aspects of the Swiss workplace: trade unions, the work ethic, and women in the working world. Youth and their life prospects, as well as the educational system, are critically discussed in two essays. The authors of the essay on the structure and functioning of the family examine marriage, divorce, and styles of interaction within the family. Separate essays assess the life styles and social classes of the elderly, crime and crime control, changes affecting the rural population, and Switzerland's image abroad. Switzerland in Perspective will be an excellent resource for those interested in the broader scholarly or practical implications of Swiss economic, social, and political arrangements.
Playing Utopia
Author: Benjamin Beil
Publisher: transcript Verlag
ISBN: 3839450500
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 333
Book Description
Media narratives inform our ideas of the future - and Games are currently making a significant contribution to this medial reservoir. On the one hand, Games demonstrate a particular propensity for fantastic and futuristic scenarios. On the other hand, they often serve as an experimental field for the latest media technologies. However, while dystopias are part of the standard gaming repertoire, Games feature utopias much less frequently. Why? This anthology examines playful utopias from two perspectives. It investigates utopias in digital Games as well as utopias of the digital game; that is, the role of ludic elements in scenarios of the future.
Publisher: transcript Verlag
ISBN: 3839450500
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 333
Book Description
Media narratives inform our ideas of the future - and Games are currently making a significant contribution to this medial reservoir. On the one hand, Games demonstrate a particular propensity for fantastic and futuristic scenarios. On the other hand, they often serve as an experimental field for the latest media technologies. However, while dystopias are part of the standard gaming repertoire, Games feature utopias much less frequently. Why? This anthology examines playful utopias from two perspectives. It investigates utopias in digital Games as well as utopias of the digital game; that is, the role of ludic elements in scenarios of the future.
The Case of Christian Kracht
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004694102
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 208
Book Description
The bestselling, contemporary Swiss author Christian Kracht is as widely celebrated as he is a source of controversy. This introduction to his work suggests locating his writings in discourses that range beyond the labels that have been traditionally assigned to them, namely “postmodernism,” camp,” and “Popliteratur.” Instead, this volume considers Kracht’s work through the lenses of “authorship,” “irony,” and “globalism.” This volume argues that there is no fixed or uniform author represented in Kracht’s corpus, explores the ironic strategies involved in Kracht’s various authorial representations, and engages the cultural exchange inherent in Kracht’s work.
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004694102
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 208
Book Description
The bestselling, contemporary Swiss author Christian Kracht is as widely celebrated as he is a source of controversy. This introduction to his work suggests locating his writings in discourses that range beyond the labels that have been traditionally assigned to them, namely “postmodernism,” camp,” and “Popliteratur.” Instead, this volume considers Kracht’s work through the lenses of “authorship,” “irony,” and “globalism.” This volume argues that there is no fixed or uniform author represented in Kracht’s corpus, explores the ironic strategies involved in Kracht’s various authorial representations, and engages the cultural exchange inherent in Kracht’s work.