Utopian Imaginings: Saving the Future in the Present (SUNY in Humanities to the Rescue)

by: Victoria W. Wolcott (Editor)

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Publication Date: 2024/4/1

Language: English

Print Length: 282 pages

ISBN-10: 1438497512

ISBN-13: 9781438497518

Book Description

“Sometimes that’s all it takes to save a world, you see. A new vision. A new way of thinking, appearing at just the right time.” These words were spoken by a fictional character in N. K. Jemisin’s 2019 utopian novella Emergency Skin. But the idea of saving the world through utopian imaginings has a deep and profound history. At this moment of rupture–with the related crises of the pandemic, racial uprisings, and climate change converging–Utopian Imaginings revisits this history to show how utopian thought and practice offer alteative paths to the future. The third book in the Humanities to the Rescue series, the volume examines both lived and imagined utopian communities from an interdisciplinary perspective. While attentive to the troubled and troubling elements of different spaces and collectives, Utopian Imaginings remains premised in hope, culminating in a series of inspiring exemplars of the utopian potential of the college classroom today.

About the Author

“Sometimes that’s all it takes to save a world, you see. A new vision. A new way of thinking, appearing at just the right time.” These words were spoken by a fictional character in N. K. Jemisin’s 2019 utopian novella Emergency Skin. But the idea of saving the world through utopian imaginings has a deep and profound history. At this moment of rupture–with the related crises of the pandemic, racial uprisings, and climate change converging–Utopian Imaginings revisits this history to show how utopian thought and practice offer alteative paths to the future. The third book in the Humanities to the Rescue series, the volume examines both lived and imagined utopian communities from an interdisciplinary perspective. While attentive to the troubled and troubling elements of different spaces and collectives, Utopian Imaginings remains premised in hope, culminating in a series of inspiring exemplars of the utopian potential of the college classroom today.