Thinking Utopia

Steps into Other Worlds
1. Auflage 2006
ISBN: 978-1-84545-304-6
Verlag: Berghahn Books

Buch, Englisch, Band 4, 328 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 500 g

Reihe: Making Sense of History

After the breakdown of socialist and communist systems in the East, it had become fashionable to declare the so-called "end of utopia" ("end of history," "end of narratives"). The authors of this volume do not share this view but think that it is time to rehabilitate utopian thought. The political concept of Utopia that has given its name to these transcendental projections onto the world has been too narrow to describe and analyze the moving forces of the mind perceiving human existence beyond reality. By broadening the perspectives of utopian studies, these essays enable the reader to reconstruct scholarly paradigms and strategies of utopian, complex and holistic thinking in modern cosmology, philosophy, sociology, in literary, historical and political sciences, and to compare traditions and ways of Western utopian thought to the practice in the East.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Rüsen, Jörn

Fehr, Michael

Rieger, Thomas W.

Fachgebiete

• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften Interdisziplinär Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein Historiographie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations

Preface and Acknowledgements

Introduction

Jörn Rüsen, Michael Fehr and Thomas W. Rieger

Chapter 1. The Necessity of Utopian Thinking: A Cross-National Perspective

Lyman Tower Sargent

PART I: POLITICS, CONSTRUCTION AND FUNCTIONS OF UTOPIAN THINKING

Chapter 2. Aspects of the Western Utopian Tradition

Krishan Kumar

Chapter 3. Visions of the Future

Michael Thompson

Chapter 4. Utopia, Contractualism, Human Rights

Richard Saage

Chapter 5. On the Construction of Worlds: Technology and Economy in European Utopias

Wolfgang Pircher

PART II: ARTIFICIAL WORLDS AND THE 'NEW MAN'

Chapter 6. Bodies in Utopia and Utopian Bodies in Imperial China

Dorothy Ko

Chapter 7. Science, Technology and Utopia: Perspectives of a Computer-Assisted Evolution of Humankind

Klaus Mainzer

Chapter 8. ‘Thinking about the Unthinkable’: The Virtual as a Place of Utopia

Claus Pias

Chapter 9. Natural Utopianism in Everyday Life Practice – An Elementary Theoretical Model

Ulrich Oevermann

PART III: MUSEUM AS UTOPIAN LABORATORY

Chapter 10. Haunted by Things: Utopias and Their Consequences

Donald Preziosi

Chapter 11. Art – Museum – Utopia: Five Themes on an Epistemological Construction Site

Michael Fehr

Chapter 12. Art, Science, Utopia in the Early Modern Period

Wolfgang Braungart

Chapter 13. Utopiary

Rachel Weiss

PART IV: UTOPIA AS A MEDIUM OF CULTURAL COMMUNICATION

Chapter 14. The Utopian Vision, East and West

Zhang Longxi

Chapter 15. Trauma: A Dystopia of the Spirit

Michael S. Roth

Chapter 16. From Revolutionary to Catastrophic Utopia

Slavoj Zizek

Chapter 17. The Narrative Staging of Image and Counter-Image: On the Poetics of Literary Utopias

Wilhelm Vosskamp

Chapter 18. Rethinking Utopia: A Plea for a Culture of Inspiration

Jörn Rüsen

Notes on Contributors

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Fehr, Michael
Michael Fehr has been Director of the Karl Ernst Osthaus-Museum of the City of Hagen, Germany, since 1987. Prior to that he was Assistant Professor at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal, and Deputy Director at the Art Museum of the City of Bochum. He has curated numerous exhibitions on contemporary art, cultural history and city planning, and, in the 1970s, created and organized for almost one decade the Kemnade International, a cultural festival for immigrant workers and their families in Germany. He has published extensively on contemporary art as well as on theory of museums. He teaches museology at University of Bonn.

Rieger, Thomas W.
Thomas W. Rieger studied Art History, Archeology, City Planning and History at Universities Bonn, Zürich, Berlin and Columbia University, New York. He has been working at Museum of Contemporary History Bonn (Stiftung Haus der Geschichte) from 1993 to 1998, and since 1999 at Karl Ernst Osthaus-Museum Hagen as co-curator of the exhibition project Museutopia - Steps Into Other Worlds (2002). He teaches Theory of Architecture at RWTH Aachen.

Rüsen, Jörn
Jörn Rüsen was Professor of Modern History at Universities Bochum and Bielefeld for many years. From 1994 to 1997 he was Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF) at Bielefeld. Since 1997 he has been President of the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities Essen (Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut). He specialises in theory and methodology of historical sciences, the history of historiography, intercultural aspects of historical thinking, theory of historical learning, and the history of human rights.

Jörn Rüsen was Professor of Modern History at Universities Bochum and Bielefeld for many years. From 1994 to 1997 he was Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF) at Bielefeld. Since 1997 he has been President of the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities Essen (Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut). He specialises in theory and methodology of historical sciences, the history of historiography, intercultural aspects of historical thinking, theory of historical learning, and the history of human rights.