This new fascinating study is grounded in the history of modern political ideas to illuminate how nature may be regarded as a touchstone of liberty in political thought. Piers Stephens skilfully argues that the genre of utopias and dystopias is the key modern example of popular literary forms in which major human hopes and fears about technological society are inscribed. Arising as the genre does alongside the idea of progress and the origins of modern science, this book examines the ways in which freedom and nature are portrayed in the four most influential dystopian novels of the 20thcentury: Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, George Orwell’s 1984and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Stephens also explores the ways in which vitally significant and often overlooked connections exist between the concept and experience of nature on the one side and the conditions, exercise and practices of human freedom on the other. In doing so, he makes an invaluable contribution both to the history of ideas and to contemporary environmental political theory.
Type: BOOK - Published: 2006 - Publisher: Environmental Politics
This new fascinating study is grounded in the history of modern political ideas to illuminate how nature may be regarded as a touchstone of liberty in political thought. Piers Stephens skilfully argues that the genre of utopias and dystopias is the key modern example of popular literary forms in which
In this paper I shall first argue that historically, external nature has been profoundly associated with the idea of human liberty in many ways, but that this association receded from mainstream philosophical acceptance after the rise of Newtonian science. However, I maintain that these nature-liberty associations do not vanish from
Type: BOOK - Published: 2019-09-16 - Publisher: BRILL
In Wind and Whirlwind Ágnes Heller and Riccardo Mazzeo analyse utopias and dystopias in the works of philosophers and novelists and highlight the importance to find one's way avoiding the charming destructive traps.
Authors: Peter Marks, Jennifer A. Wagner-Lawlor, Fátima Vieira
Categories: Literary Criticism
Type: BOOK - Published: 2022-04-16 - Publisher: Springer Nature
The Palgrave Handbook of Utopian and Dystopian Literatures celebrates a literary genre already over 500 years old. Specially commissioned essays from established and emerging international scholars reflect the vibrancy of utopian vision, and its resiliency as idea, genre, and critical mode. Covering politics, environment, geography, body and mind, and social
Type: BOOK - Published: 2012-08-10 - Publisher: JHU Press
Transhumanists advocate for the development and distribution of technologies that will enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities, even eliminate aging. What if the dystopian futures and transhumanist utopias found in the pages of science journals, Margaret Atwood novels, films like Gattaca, and television shows like Dark Angel are realized?