Utopian studies

For the academic journal, see Utopian Studies.

Utopian studies is an interdisciplinary field of study that researches utopianism in all its forms, including utopian politics, utopian literature and art, utopian theory, and intentional communities. In a 1516 book with the same name, the term utopia was coined by Sir Thomas More. Utopian studies can be subdivided into three major areas: study of utopian works, communitarianism and utopian social theory.^[1] A study opposite to Utopian studies is Dystopian studies. While Utopias are non-existent societies people dream of, dystopias are essentially non-existent and non-desirable societies that individuals deem worse than their present society.^[1] They are also known as negative utopias.^[1]

A "Utopia" sign in Brazil.

History

Denis Vairasse is mentioned among the earliest scholars in this field.^[1] His History of the Sevarambians contains one of the first thoughts on theoretical reflection on the concept of utopia: "Those who have read Plato's Republic or the Utopia of Thomas More or Chancellor Bacon's New Atlantis, which are in fact nothing more than the ingenious inventions ["imaginations"] of these authors, may think perhaps that this account of newly discovered countries, with all their marvels, is of a similar type ["sont de ce genre"]."^[1]

After the Summer of Love in 1960s, there was a significant increase in utopian works.^[1] The Society for Utopian Studies was founded in 1975 and the Utopian Studies Society was founded in 1988.

Significant utopian studies scholars (in roughly chronological order)

• Herbert Marcuse
• Karl Mannheim
• Ernst Bloch
• Krishnan Kumar
• Raymond Williams
• Darko Suvin
• Lyman Tower Sargent
• Gregory Claeys
• Erik Olin Wright
• Ruth Levitas
• Tom Moylan
• Fredric Jameson
• Lucy Sargisson
• Vincent Geoghegan
• Raffaella Baccolini

Principal research institutions, journals, conferences, societies, awards

Research institutions:

Name	Location	Ref
Ralahine Centre for Utopian Studies	University of Limerick	[2]
Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures	University of Bologna	[3]
Interdepartmental Center for Utopian Studies	University of Lecce	[4]

Societies:

• Society for Utopian Studies (North America, founded 1975)
• Utopian Studies Society (Europe, founded 1988)

Journals:

• Utopian Studies (founded 1987)

Conferences:

• Society for Utopian Studies, annual
• Utopian Studies Society, annual

Awards:

• The Lyman Tower Sargent Distinguished Scholar Award, made by the Society for Utopian Studies.

Significant works

Authors/Editors	Description	Year
Ernst Bloch	The Principle of Hope. 3 Vols. Trans. Neville Plaice, Stephen Plaice, Paul Knight. Oxford: Blackwell	1986 [1937-41]
Gregory Claeys and Lyman Tower Sargent (eds)	The Utopia Reader. New York: New York University Press	1999
Gregory Claeys (ed.)	The Cambridge Companion to utopian Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press	2010
Vincent Geoghegan	Utopianism and Marxism. London: Methuen	1987
Fredric Jameson	Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions. London: Verso	2005
Krishnan Kumar	Utopia and Anti-utopia in Modern Times. Oxford: Blackwell	1987
Krishnan Kumar	Utopianism. Milton Keynes: Open University Press	1991
Ruth Levitas	The Concept of Utopia. London: Allan	1990
Karl Mannheim	Ideology and Utopia: an Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge. Trans. Louis Wirth and Edward Shils. London: Routledge	1936 [1929]
Tom Moylan	Demand the Impossible: Science Fiction and the Utopian Imagination. London: Methuen	1986
Tom Moylan	Scraps of the Untainted Sky: Science Fiction, Utopia, Dystopia. Boulder and Oxford: Westview Press	2000
Tom Moylan and Rafaella Baccolini (eds.)	Utopia-Method-Vision: The Use Value of Social Dreaming. Oxford and Bern: Peter Lang	2007
Peter Y. Paik	From Utopia to Apocalypse: Science Fiction and the Politics of Catastrophe. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P	2010
Lyman Tower Sargent	British and American Utopian Literature 1516-1985: An Annotated, Chronological Bibliography. New York: Garland	1988
Lyman Tower Sargent	Utopianism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press	2010
Lucy Sargisson	Contemporary Feminist Utopianism. London: Routledge	1996
Lucy Sargisson and Lyman Tower Sargent	Living in Utopia: New Zealand's Intentional Communities. Aldershot: Ashgate	2004
Darko Suvin	Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre. New Haven: Yale University Press	1979
Darko Suvin	Defined by a Hollow: Essays on Utopia, Science Fiction and Political Epistemology. Frankfurt am Main, Oxford and Bern: Peter Lang	2010
Raymond Williams	Tenses of Imagination: Raymond Williams on Science Fiction, Utopia and Dystopia. Ed. Andrew Milner. Frankfurt am Main, Oxford and Bern: Peter Lang	2010