Laughter, Ethnicity, and Socialist Utopia:

2019 ◽  
pp. 19-36
Author(s):  
Ban Wang
Keyword(s):  
Socialist Utopia

Looking Backward 2000-1887

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Bellamy
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Democratic Society ◽  
The Political ◽  
Industrial Capitalism ◽  
Ideal Society ◽  
The Past ◽  
Utopian Fiction ◽  
Socialist Utopia ◽  
Year 2000 ◽  
The Ideal

‘No person can be blamed for refusing to read another word of what promises to be a mere imposition upon his credulity.’ Julian West, a feckless aristocrat living in fin-de-siècle Boston, plunges into a deep hypnotic sleep in 1887 and wakes up in the year 2000. America has been turned into a rigorously centralized democratic society in which everything is controlled by a humane and efficient state. In little more than a hundred years the horrors of nineteenth-century capitalism have been all but forgotten. The squalid slums of Boston have been replaced by broad streets, and technological inventions have transformed people’s everyday lives. Exiled from the past, West excitedly settles into the ideal society of the future, while still fearing that he has dreamt up his experiences as a time traveller. Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward (1888) is a thunderous indictment of industrial capitalism and a resplendent vision of life in a socialist utopia. Matthew Beaumont’s lively edition explores the political and psychological peculiarities of this celebrated utopian fiction.

Socialism, Masculinity, and the ‘Faddist’ Sage: Edward Carpenter and George Bernard Shaw

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Livesey
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Sexual Desire ◽  
Good Friend ◽  
George Bernard Shaw ◽  
Species Change ◽  
Socialist Movement ◽  
Edward Carpenter ◽  
Socialist Utopia ◽  
Bernard Shaw

Schreiner's good friend Edward Carpenter was her chief source of news about the socialist movement during her self-imposed exiles on the continent throughout the later 1880s. Carpenter sought to reshape masculinity and civilization through sexual desire itself. This chapter examines how the fads of vegetarianism, Jaegerism, and sandal wearing came to be associated with socialism in the last decades of the nineteenth century. It argues that for Carpenter and George Bernard Shaw, these ascetic regimes provided a means of investigating and reforming conventional ideals of masculinity. Both writers represent such fads as bodily labour and discipline, thus overcoming the opposition between the man of letters and the manly labourer. While Carpenter's theory of Lamarckian biological idealism concluded that such practices would result in species change and a socialist utopia of liberated sexual bodies, Shaw's regime aimed to supplement the necessary redistribution of capital.

scholarly journals Converted by un confit de canard: Political Thinking in the Novel Soumission by Michel Houellebecq

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 591-599
Author(s):  
Marie Demker
Keyword(s):  
German Society ◽  
George Orwell ◽  
The Novel ◽  
State Monitoring ◽  
French Society ◽  
Political Literature ◽  
Michel Houellebecq ◽  
Socialist Utopia ◽  
Tabloid Press ◽  
The Church

From a certain perspective, literature is always political. Literature in a broad sense has been a source of uprisings and protest at least since Martin Luther nailed his theses on the door of the church in Wittenberg in 1517 – and probably much further back in history than that. Narratives are the most potent way to articulate both political praise and criticism within a given society. In his political satires, British author George Orwell reviled all kinds of totalitarianism and the idea of a socialist utopia. Swedish writer and journalist Stieg Larsson wrote explicitly dystopian crime stories targeting the Swedish welfare state. German novelist Heinrich Böll turned a critical eye on the development of the tabloid press and the use of state monitoring in German society. In the same tradition, Michel Houellebecq has been seen as a very provocative writer in his tone and in his use of political tools. He has articulated a nearly individual anarchist perspective combined with authoritarian and paternalistic views. In Soumission, Houellebecq uses the European idea of multiculturalism to explode our political frames from within. This article explores the perception of religion in Soumission, assesses the critique Houellebecq directs towards French society and European developments, and examines Houellebecq’s perception of democracy and politics. The following questions are addressed: does Houellebecq’s critique come from a classical ideological perspective? Does he describe any elements of an ideal society – even if only as the reverse of a presented dystopia? What kind of democracy does the text of Soumission support or oppose?

Liberation theology and the socialist utopia of a Nicaraguan shoemaker

1995 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosario Montoya
Keyword(s):  
Liberation Theology ◽  
Socialist Utopia

Opera for the Revolution

2020 ◽  
pp. 101-134
Author(s):  
Keith Howard
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Production ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Control Strategies ◽  
Kim Il Sung ◽  
The North ◽  
Self Reliance ◽  
Kim Jong Il ◽  
History Of ◽  
Korean State ◽  
Socialist Utopia

Chapter 4 is the first of three chapters on “revolutionary operas.” Five operas were created between 1971 and 1973. These reflect the state ideology of juche, often translated as “self-reliance,” but linked, in artistic creation, to two control strategies that keep cultural production in check: collective composition and “seed theory.” The operas enhance the cult of Kim Il Sung and were created with the assistance of Kim Jong Il. After a detailed consideration and contextualization of juche (“self reliance”), the operas are introduced. The chapter presents two in detail, “Sea of Blood” and “The Flower Girl,” to explore how lyrics, music, and drama reference historical and social issues known to North Korean audiences to strengthen the orthodox history of the North Korean state, the leadership cult, and the notion of a socialist utopia. It also introduces the three additional operas, “A True Daughter of the Party,” “Oh! Tell, the Forest,” and “Mount Kŭmgang.”

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