Utopian Community

2021 ◽  
pp. 74-103
Keyword(s):  
Utopian Community

Fully Human Being

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jake Poller
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Aldous Huxley ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Mahayana Buddhism ◽  
Perennial Philosophy ◽  
Utopian Community ◽  
Mahāyāna Buddhism

In Island (1962), Aldous Huxley presents a utopian community in which theinhabitants aim to become "fully human beings" by realizing their "potentialities."I demonstrate how Huxley's notion of the "human potentialities" havebeen misrepresented, both by scholars and by the founders of the Esalen Institute.Huxley's focus on human potentialities arose from a shift in his thinkingfrom the other-worldly mysticism of The Perennial Philosophy (1945) to thelife-affirming traditions of Tantra, Zen and Mahayana Buddhism. In Island,the population attempt to realize their human potentialities and engage in anexperiential spirituality that celebrates the body and nature as sacred throughthe use of the moksha-medicine and the practice of maithuna. I argue thatwhereas Tantric adepts practised maithuna as a means to acquire supernormalpowers (siddhis), in Island the Palanese version of maithuna is quite differentand is used to valorize samsara and the acquisition of human potentialities.

“Shine Your Light on the World”

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosemary Candelario
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Gender Ideology ◽  
Dance Studies ◽  
The World ◽  
Utopian Community

In 2004, comedian Dave Chappelle brought residents of Yellow Springs, Ohio, and New York City together in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, for a hip-hop block party featuring a roster of socially engaged rap and neo-soul artists. This chapter argues that the 2006 film of the concert,Dave Chappelle’s Block Party, directed by Michel Gondry, endeavors to construct a utopian community centered on the birthplace of hip-hop. Employing dance studies methodologies to examine a non-dance event, this article attends to the choreography of the block, the party attendees and performers, and their spontaneous solo and group gestures and movements at the block party. Such an approach emphasizes the corporeality of the concert performers and attendees and allows an examination of their bodily signification in terms of race, gender, ideology, power, and ultimately the nation.

Songs of Oru Olai and the Praxis of Alternative Dalit Christian Modernities in India

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoe Sherinian
Keyword(s):  
Tamil Nadu ◽  
Daily Practice ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Economic Sustainability ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Common Ownership ◽  
Utopian Community ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Musical Exchange

This chapter addresses an alternative Dalit Christian modernity transmitted and practiced through song and drumming in Tamil Nadu, India. Using two examples of the praxis of sharing, I analyze expressions of agency by the caste and gender oppressed that shows an awareness of discourses of liberation in both the bible and the modern world outside the caste-inflected village. Daily practice of economic sustainability through community finds its musical analogy in folk music’s potential for re-creation, unity, accessibility, and common ownership by the oppressed. I theorize this as an indigenous religio-political cosmopolitanism, expressed by Dalits as a discourse of supra-localism and spirituality that reverses the discourse of caste impurity and pollution. These cases show the historical and contemporary nature of Christian transnational flow in the form of theology, politics, and utopian community, its dialogical process of indigenization, and the process of cross-cultural musical exchange to (re)make Christianity meaningful through local musical reconstruction.

The Eagle Creek Venture

The Mentelles ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randolph Paul Runyon
Keyword(s):  
Utopian Community ◽  
Scott County

In 1801, Waldemar discovers that du Pont's Scott County land is crisscrossed by conflicting claims of ownership, as was typical of much Kentucky land at that time. His work is delayed by the difficulty of persuading the original surveyor to accompany him there. The soil in du Pont's tract, where the latter had originally wanted to establish a utopian community, is not especially fertile. It is in addition too far from outlets for its produce. In November 1801, Waldemar takes emergency steps to prevent the land from being sold for nonpayment of taxes. In the summer of 1802, du Pont sells the land to his son, Victor, and returns to France. Waldemar is rehired as land agent, and having decided to enter commerce, persuades Victor to supply him with merchandise to sell. Victor becomes increasingly slow to reply to Waldemar's letters. Unbeknownst to Waldemar, Victor is staving off a bankruptcy to which in August 1805 he succumbs.

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