Green Utopias

Author : Lisa Garforth
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 208 pages
File Size : 47,5 Mb
Release : 2017-11-10
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780745684772

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Green Utopias by Lisa Garforth Pdf

Environmentalism has relentlessly warned about the dire consequences of abusing and exploiting the planet's natural resources, imagining future wastelands of ecological depletion and social chaos. But it has also generated rich new ideas about how humans might live better with nature. Green Utopias explores these ideas of environmental hope in the post-war period, from the environmental crisis to the end of nature. Using a broad definition of Utopia as it exists in Western policy, theory and literature, Lisa Garforth explains how its developing entanglement with popular culture and mainstream politics has shaped successive green future visions and initiatives. In the face of apocalyptic, despairing or indifferent responses to contemporary ecological dilemmas, utopias and the utopian method seem more necessary than ever. This distinctive reading of green political thought and culture will appeal across the social sciences and humanities to all interested in why green utopias continue to matter in the cultivation of ecological values and the emergence of new forms of human and non-human well-being.

Author : Lisa Garforth
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 208 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2018-03-15
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780745684758

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Green Utopias by Lisa Garforth Pdf

Environmentalism has relentlessly warned about the dire consequences of abusing and exploiting the planet's natural resources, imagining future wastelands of ecological depletion and social chaos. But it has also generated rich new ideas about how humans might live better with nature. Green Utopias explores these ideas of environmental hope in the post-war period, from the environmental crisis to the end of nature. Using a broad definition of Utopia as it exists in Western policy, theory and literature, Lisa Garforth explains how its developing entanglement with popular culture and mainstream politics has shaped successive green future visions and initiatives. In the face of apocalyptic, despairing or indifferent responses to contemporary ecological dilemmas, utopias and the utopian method seem more necessary than ever. This distinctive reading of green political thought and culture will appeal across the social sciences and humanities to all interested in why green utopias continue to matter in the cultivation of ecological values and the emergence of new forms of human and non-human well-being.

Author : Karin Bradley,Johan Hedrén
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 311 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2014-03-21
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781135078416

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Green Utopianism by Karin Bradley,Johan Hedrén Pdf

Utopian thought and experimental approaches to societal organization have been rare in the last decades of planning and politics. Instead, there is a widespread belief in ecological modernization, that sustainable societies can be created within the frame of the current global capitalist world order by taking small steps such as eco-labeling, urban densification, and recycling. However, in the context of the current crisis in which resource depletion, climate change, uneven development, and economic instability are seen as interlinked, this belief is increasingly being questioned and alternative developmental paths sought. This collection demonstrates how utopian thought can be used in a contemporary context, as critique and in exploring desired futures. The book includes theoretical perspectives on changing global socio-environmental relationships and political struggles for alternative development paths, and analyzes micro-level practices in co-housing, alternative energy provision, use of green space, transportation, co-production of urban space, peer-to-peer production and consumption, and alternative economies. It contributes research perspectives on contemporary green utopian practices and strategies, combining theoretical and empirical analyses to spark discussions of possible futures.

Author : Karin Bradley,Johan Hedrén
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 303 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 2014-03-21
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781135078423

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Green Utopianism by Karin Bradley,Johan Hedrén Pdf

Utopian thought and experimental approaches to societal organization have been rare in the last decades of planning and politics. Instead, there is a widespread belief in ecological modernization, that sustainable societies can be created within the frame of the current global capitalist world order by taking small steps such as eco-labeling, urban densification, and recycling. However, in the context of the current crisis in which resource depletion, climate change, uneven development, and economic instability are seen as interlinked, this belief is increasingly being questioned and alternative developmental paths sought. This collection demonstrates how utopian thought can be used in a contemporary context, as critique and in exploring desired futures. The book includes theoretical perspectives on changing global socio-environmental relationships and political struggles for alternative development paths, and analyzes micro-level practices in co-housing, alternative energy provision, use of green space, transportation, co-production of urban space, peer-to-peer production and consumption, and alternative economies. It contributes research perspectives on contemporary green utopian practices and strategies, combining theoretical and empirical analyses to spark discussions of possible futures.

Author : Angela Kallhoff
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 250 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 2024-06-29
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 9783031568022

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Greentopia: Utopian Thought in the Anthropocene by Angela Kallhoff Pdf

Author : Jennifer L. Allen
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 369 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2022-03-22
Category : History
ISBN : 9780674276192

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Sustainable Utopias by Jennifer L. Allen Pdf

To reclaim a sense of hope for the future, German activists in the late twentieth century engaged ordinary citizens in innovative projects that resisted alienation and disenfranchisement. By most accounts, the twentieth century was not kind to utopian thought. The violence of two world wars, Cold War anxieties, and a widespread sense of crisis after the 1973 global oil shock appeared to doom dreams of a better world. The eventual victory of capitalism and, seemingly, liberal democracy relieved some fears but exchanged them for complacency and cynicism. Not, however, in West Germany. Jennifer Allen showcases grassroots activism of the 1980s and 1990s that envisioned a radically different society based on community-centered politics—a society in which the democratization of culture and power ameliorated alienation and resisted the impotence of end-of-history narratives. Berlin’s History Workshop liberated research from university confines by providing opportunities for ordinary people to write and debate the story of the nation. The Green Party made the politics of direct democracy central to its program. Artists changed the way people viewed and acted in public spaces by installing objects in unexpected environments, including the Stolpersteine: paving stones, embedded in residential sidewalks, bearing the names of Nazi victims. These activists went beyond just trafficking in ideas. They forged new infrastructures, spaces, and behaviors that gave everyday people real agency in their communities. Undergirding this activism was the environmentalist concept of sustainability, which demanded that any alternative to existing society be both enduring and adaptable. A rigorous but inspiring tale of hope in action, Sustainable Utopias makes the case that it is still worth believing in human creativity and the labor of citizenship.

Author : Alan Marshall
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2016-10-04
Category : Nature
ISBN : 9781628726145

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Ecotopia 2121 by Alan Marshall Pdf

A 2016 Green Book Festival "Future Forecasts" Winner A stunningly original, lushly illustrated vision for a Green Utopia, published on the 500th anniversary of the original Big Idea. Five hundred years ago a powerful new word was unleashed upon the world when Thomas More published his book Utopia, about an island paradise far away from his troubled land. It was an instant hit, and the literati across Europe couldn't get enough of its blend of social fantasy with a deep desire for a better world. Five hundred years later, Ecotopia 2121 once again harnesses the power of the utopian imagination to confront our current problems, among them climate change, and offer a radical, alternative vision for the future of our troubled planet. Depicting one hundred cities around the globe—from New York to San Francisco, London, Tokyo, Sydney, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Beijing, Vienna, Singapore, Cape Town, Abu Dhabi, and Mumbai—Alan Marshall imagines how each may survive and prosper. A striking, full-color scenario painting illustrates each city. The chapters tell how each community has found either a social or technological innovation to solve today's crises. Fifteen American cities are covered. Around the world, urban planners like to tailor scenarios for the year 2020, to take advantage of the metaphor of 20-20 vision. In Ecotopia 2121, the vision may be fuzzy, but its sharp insights, captivating illustrations, and playful storytelling will keep readers coming back again and again.

Author : Lucy Sargisson
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 199 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2002-01-22
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781134610501

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Utopian Bodies and the Politics of Transgression by Lucy Sargisson Pdf

What do we want? What do we believe to be wrong with the world? How can we best change it? How should we live? Given the world as it is, how can we best achieve our dreams and desires? Utopian Bodies is, quite simply, a new approach to thinking about theory. Using the dominant themes of green and feminist politics, this fascinating and original text creates a new notion of utopian thought and life - "transgressive utopianism". This new concept is not a blueprint for an ideal polity; instead it demonstrates an approach to the world that is both idealistic and pragmatic, focussing on bodies of thought in relation to bodies of people: communities. Also spanning philosophy, political theory and deconstruction, this book is especially relevant today as the millennium marks a time of resurgence in utopian studies

Author : Geoffrey Berry
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 118 pages
File Size : 52,9 Mb
Release : 2017-10-02
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781317383697

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Utopias and the Environment by Geoffrey Berry Pdf

Utopias and the Environment explores the way in which the kind of ‘dreaming’, or re-visioning, known as the ‘utopian imaginary’ takes environmental concerns into account. This kind of creative intervention is increasingly important in an era of ecological crisis, as we witness the failure of governments worldwide to significantly change industrial civilization from a path of ‘business as usual.’ In this context, it is up to the artists – in this case authors – to imagine new ways of being that respond to this imperative and immediate global issue. Concurrently, it is also up to critics, readers, and thinkers everywhere to appraise these narratives of possibility for their complexities and internal conflicts, as well as for their promise, as we enter this new era of rapid change and adaptation. Because creative and critical thinkers must work together towards this goal, the idea of the critical utopia, coined by Tom Moylan in response to the fiction of the 1970s, is now ingrained in the common argot and is one of the key ideas discussed in this book. This development in the genre, which combines self-reflexivity and multiple perspectives within its dreaming, represents the postmodern spirit in its most regenerative aspect. This book is testament to such hopes and potential realities. This book was originally published as a special issue of Green Letters.

Author : Barbara Goodwin
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2012-12-06
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781136337635

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The Philosophy of Utopia by Barbara Goodwin Pdf

This collection addresses the important function of utopianism in social and political philosophy and includes debate on what its future role will be in a period dominated by dystopian nightmare scenarios.

Author : Nick Heffernan,David A. Wragg
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 290 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 2020-05-15
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781527551329

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Culture, Environment and Ecopolitics by Nick Heffernan,David A. Wragg Pdf

Culture, Environment and Ecopolitics brings together a series of new reflections on historical and current ecological and environmental predicaments. By way of critical interventions in environmental thought, and through engagements with literary, visual, architectural, philosophical, and more general cultural studies scholarship, this collection of essays by an international panel of writers breaks new interpretative ground. While techno-science has in some quarters been elevated to a master discourse of humanity’s salvation, charged with providing a magical ‘fix’ for planetary ecological dilemmas, the focus of our volume is on the importance of cultural reflection for bringing matters of local and global import to light. Moving from the abstractions of eco-critical utopianisms to the concrete identity of the land in the poetry of John Clare, from British Petroleum’s attempts to re-brand climate change to examples of eco-architecture, and much more besides, these essays exemplify ways in which eco-political thought and practice might now be theorized. The collection is framed by a substantial editors’ introduction which offers but one contextualization of the ideas and critical trajectories that follow. Culture, Environment and Ecopolitics will allow readers to discover original intersections and argumentative cross-references across contested terrains in a world increasingly troubled by ecological crises.

Author : Malcolm Miles
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 268 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2007-11-21
Category : Science
ISBN : 9781134185757

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Urban Utopias by Malcolm Miles Pdf

Utopia tends to generate a bad press - regarded as impracticable, perhaps nostalgic, or contradictory when visions of a perfect world cannot accommodate the change that is necessary to a free and self-organizing society. But people from diverse backgrounds are currently building a new society within the old, balancing literal and metaphorical utopianism, and demonstrating plural possibilities for alternative futures and types of settlement. Thousands of such places exist around the world, including intentional communities, eco-villages, permaculture plots, religious and secular retreats, co-housing projects, self-build schemes, projects for low-impact housing, and activist squats in urban and rural sites. This experience suggests, however, that when planning and design are not integral to alternative social formations, the modern dream to engineer a new society cannot be realized. The book is structured in four parts. In part one, literary and theoretical utopias from the early modern period to the nineteenth-century are reconsidered. Part two investigates twentieth-century urban utopianism and contemporary alternative settlements focusing on social and environmental issues, activism and eco-village living. Part three looks to wider horizons in recent practices in the non-affluent world, and Part four reviews a range of cases from the author’s visits to specific sites. This is followed by a short conclusion in which a discussion of key issues is resumed. This book brings together insights from literary, theoretical and practical utopias, drawing out the characteristics of groups and places that are part of a new society. It links today’s utopian experiments to historical and literary utopias, and to theoretical problems in utopian thought.

Author : Dillpreit Kaur
Publisher : Partridge Publishing Singapore
Page : 164 pages
File Size : 43,5 Mb
Release : 2024-03-05
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9781543781281

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The Action Gap by Dillpreit Kaur Pdf

So often as leaders we look for solutions outside of ourselves or our teams, hoping it is better than what we can come up with. Sometimes when we find none, we give up. We give up on the pure potentiality of how we can improve things ourselves. With World Economic Forum Global Risks Reports looking bleaker year-on-year, with more interconnected risks than ever, it is time to turn inward and take grounded action with all that we have instead. This book provides an approach called dignity. It is a seven step creative problem-solving process that believes answers to our complex wicked problems are within and around us. We just need to work better, together. Visit www.goalweaver.biz for more information.

Author : Tom Moylan
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 431 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2020-11-26
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781350133358

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Becoming Utopian by Tom Moylan Pdf

A dream of a better world is a powerful human force that inspires activists, artists, and citizens alike. In this book Tom Moylan – one of the pioneering scholars of contemporary utopian studies – explores the utopian process in its individual and collective trajectory from dream to realization. Drawing on theorists such as Fredric Jameson, Donna Haraway and Alain Badiou and science fiction writers such as Kim Stanley Robinson and China Miéville, Becoming Utopian develops its argument for sociopolitical action through studies that range from liberation theology, ecological activism, and radical pedagogy to the radical movements of 1968. Throughout, Moylan speaks to the urgent need to confront and transform the global environmental, economic, political and cultural crises of our time.

Author : Joel Jay Kassiola
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 257 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2015-03-04
Category : History
ISBN : 9781317470755

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Explorations in Environmental Political Theory by Joel Jay Kassiola Pdf

The contributors to this volume focus on the political and value issues that, in their shared view, underlie the global environmental crisis facing us today. They argue that only by transforming our dominant values, social institutions and way of living can we avoid ecological disaster.