RUSSELL, Elizabeth, Trans/Forming Utopia Volume II: The 'Small Thin Story', Oxford, Bern / Berlin / Bruxelles / Frankfurt am Main / New York / Wien, Peter Lang, 2009, 235 p.
ISBN 978-3-03911-348-4
RÉSUMÉ
Is the utopian project dead? Is it possible to imagine a utopiansociety or a utopian world in the aftermath of the collapse ofideologies? This book contains eighteen essays which are the result ofthe 7th International Conference of Utopian Studies held in Spain in2006, either debating the subject, or suggesting alternative readingsto some of the theoretical ideas raised within utopian studies.
This volume focuses on the importance of narratives in utopianliterature. They define the world we live in and the world we wish tolive in. Through narratives of confession, and indeed through silenceitself, the unconscious emerges and desire is articulated. The articlesin this volume question and challenge the power of the word, thestability of meaning, and the relationship between thought and actionin the construction of utopia and dystopia. They also point to thevarious literary frameworks of utopian and dystopian narratives, thusconnecting stories from the past, present and future of both real andimaginary and communities.
TABLE DES MATIÈRES
Elizabeth Russell: Introduction - Maggie Gee: Utopia and the LivingBody: Drought, Flood, Terror and Engineering in the Garden of EarthlyDelights - Dolors Collellmir: The Ecological Paradigm in JeannetteArmstrong's Novel Whispering in Shadows - Benjamin Smith: The Secret Gardenas Ecoregion: A Green Approach to a Children's Novel - Maria OdetteCanivell: Waslala: Beyond U-topia - Jennifer E. Michaels: ConfrontingGerman Terrorism: F.C. Delius's Trilogy Deutscher Herbst (German Autumn) - Celia Wallhead: Two Takes on Terrorism in Kashmir: Salman Rushdie's Shalimar the Clown and Justine Hardy's The Wonder House - Renata Koba: The Other Side of History: Alternate World(s) of The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick - Alireza Omid Bakhsh: The Roots of Dystopia in Iran - Ana Raquel Fernandes: London Fields: Martin Amis's Postmodern Dystopia - Ana Cláudia Romano Ribeiro: The Meaning of Hermaphroditism in Gabriel de Foigny's Utopia The Southern Land Known - Teresa Requena: The Brook Farm Heterotopia: Utopian Socialism and Gender in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Blithedale Romance - Mercè Cuenca: 'My Heroine Would Be Myself': The Promise of a Queer Utopia in Carson McCullers's The Member of the Wedding and Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar- Beatriz Domínguez García: The Utopian Future of Humankind in ThreeNovels by Sheri S. Tepper: The Power of the Feminine - María DoloresGimeno Puyol: Viaje al País de los Ayparchontes: the Limits of a Spanish Utopia in the Eighteenth Century - José Eduardo Reis: The Aporias of a Portuguese Literary Utopia: Irmâniaby Ângelo Jorge - Hande Tekdemir: Utopic Reflections in the Capital ofthe 'Other Empire': Contemporary British Detective and Travel Fictionin Post-Ottoman Istanbul - Pere Gifra Adroher: Travel Writing onAndorra: Utopia in the Pyrenees - Pere Gallardo: The Road to Perditionis Paved in Technicolour.
BIOGRAPHIE
Elizabeth Russell is a senior lecturer in British literatures andcritical theory in the Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Spain. She haspublished articles in the area of utopian studies, feminisms andmulticulturalisms. Recent publications include Somnis d'Utopies published in Catalan (2007) and two edited volumes of essays: Caught Between Cultures: Women, Writing & Subjectivities (2002) and Loving Against the Odds: Women's Writing in English in a European Context (PeterLang, 2006). She is also a member of two research groups: GRÈC (Gènere,raça, ètnia i classe) and T-CLAA (Transformacions Culturals iLiteràries en angles i alemany).