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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 March 2011
Utopian visions that produced distinctly dystopic projects are rightly associated with the catastrophically violent and repressive first half of twentieth-century European history— “the age of extremes” in Eric Hobsbawm's apt phrase. National Socialism, fascism, communism, and European colonialism represented totalizing, highly ideological visions of how politics and economics, society and culture should be dramatically reorganized. Each of these projects deployed gendered rhetorics and representations; each was explicitly preoccupied with redefining masculinity and femininity, marriage and family, domesticity and sexuality. Each sought to subordinate individuals to an overarching social project, integrating some, excluding others, always elaborating complex hierarchies of gender, race, and culture.
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