Jack Halberstam’s keynote ‘Unworlding: An Aesthetics of Collapse’ really was the absolute highlight of the Utopian Studies Society of Europe conference. But wait! You didn’t have to be there! A version of the lecture is available on YouTube so I wanted to share the details. It contains some real IDEAS about UTOPIA and I highly recommend checking it out.
Continue reading “Jack Halberstam’s Unworlding: An Aesthetics of Collapse”Just Utopias Blog
Player Piano: Book of the Month March 2023
Player Piano, Kurt Vonnegut’s first novel, was published in 1952. It’s a dystopia with a wry sense of humour, which is atypical for the genre. But dystopia and farce both extrapolate events to disastrous and absurd degrees. Vonnegut makes highly effective use of this point of crossover.
Continue reading “Player Piano: Book of the Month March 2023”Walden Two: Book of the Month February 2023
Walden Two: it’s supposed to be a utopia…
Continue reading “Walden Two: Book of the Month February 2023”A Little Woman’s Utopia
Astrid R. Abildgaard is a teacher and recent MA graduate in English and History from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. In this article, she argues for using utopia not as a blueprint, but as a method for finding productive desires for a more just world, even in the most unexpected places.
How to Do Nothing: Book of the Month January 2023
Book of the month for January 2023 is How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell.
Continue reading “How to Do Nothing: Book of the Month January 2023”Review of Twoty-Twoty-Two: Revival of the Bristol Utopian Book Collective
One of the best bits of news from 2022 is the revival of the Bristol Utopian Book Collective! UBC is up and running again.
Continue reading “Review of Twoty-Twoty-Two: Revival of the Bristol Utopian Book Collective”Review of Twoty-Twoty-Two (2022): Becoming a Spike Island Associate
In the autumn of 2022 I was working on a book review. To get a bit of headspace and exercise, I was cycling or walking to work on it at the Spike Island Cafe.
Continue reading “Review of Twoty-Twoty-Two (2022): Becoming a Spike Island Associate”Review of Twoty-Twoty-Two (2022): Utopian Studies Conference
The thing that took me farthest out of my comfort zone in 2022 was attending the Utopian Studies Society conference. I thought it would be nice to have a few days away to discuss all things utopian but I was wrong. I stretched my elastic too far just to get there. It was my first time travelling on my own and travelling much at all since the pandemic and having a child (both things that have tied me to home over the past few years). Having to then leave my room and attend events was so hard. This is despite my room (in student halls) being unbearably hot and depressing.
Yes, this was another USS conference in a heatwave, like the previous one in Prato, Italy in 2019 where we discussed utopia, dystopia and climate change in 40 degree heat (Celcius, folks). Just the thing to make discussions feel urgent and hopeless at the same time.
Continue reading “Review of Twoty-Twoty-Two (2022): Utopian Studies Conference”An ecofeminist and utopian perspective on The Word For World Is Forest
My presentation from the The Word for World is Forest symposium is now available online! Find it on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, anchor.fm, PlayerFM and more. Wherever you get your podcasts, as they say.
Continue reading “An ecofeminist and utopian perspective on The Word For World Is Forest”Recommended utopian books for kids
Bristol Utopian Book Collective recently hosted a children’s book group as part of the PRSC School of Activism. I selected Oscar’s Tower of Flowers by local Bristol author and illustrator Lauren Tobia as our book to discuss. Being up for a bit of activism, Tobia joined us for the event and talked us through the story of her beautiful wordless book.
As mother to a young child and a critic of literary eco-utopias, the two sometimes crossover when reading bedtime stories. Some seemingly innocent books are horrendous when seen through an ecocritical lens (I’m looking at you, Babar). Oscar’s Tower of Flowers, however, has so many reasons to recommend it.
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