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Chapter 15 - The Time of New Histories

Utopian Possibility in America’s Twenty-First Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2024

Sherryl Vint
Affiliation:
University of California, Riverside
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Summary

This chapter argues that contemporary openings to utopian thinking are confronted by an array of different temporal frameworks that afford radically different possibilities for human agency and cohere with radically different political and ethical demands. These include, on the one hand, the geologic time scale of the Anthropocene, the long historical time informing social activism and social justice movements (e.g., the perspectives afforded by the histories of slavery, genocide, and colonialism), and the utopian perspective of hope or what Ernst Bloch calls anticipatory illumination. These must confront, on the other hand, the cyclical time of economic growth and recession, the exigent time of electoral cycles, and the frozen time of “capitalist realism.” This chapter explores conceptual and fictional responses to this matrix of possibilities, especially in narratives by Cormac McCarthy, Donna Haraway, Nisi Shawl, and Kim Stanley Robinson.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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  • The Time of New Histories
  • Edited by Sherryl Vint, University of California, Riverside
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to American Utopian Literature and Culture since 1945
  • Online publication: 09 May 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009180078.016
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  • The Time of New Histories
  • Edited by Sherryl Vint, University of California, Riverside
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to American Utopian Literature and Culture since 1945
  • Online publication: 09 May 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009180078.016
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The Time of New Histories
  • Edited by Sherryl Vint, University of California, Riverside
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to American Utopian Literature and Culture since 1945
  • Online publication: 09 May 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009180078.016
Available formats
×