Designing Realistic Utopia
Author: Jürgen Sirsch
Publisher:
Published: 2020
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9783748922063
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Envisioning Real Utopias
Author: Erik Olin Wright
Publisher: Verso Books
Published: 2020-05-05
Total Pages: 536
ISBN-13: 1789601452
DOWNLOAD EBOOKRising inequality of income and power, along with recent convulsions in the finance sector, have made the search for alternatives to unbridled capitalism more urgent than ever. Yet few are attempting this task-most analysts argue that any attempt to rethink our social and economic relations is utopian. Erik Olin Wright's major new work is a comprehensive assault on the quietism of contemporary social theory. A systematic reconstruction of the core values and feasible goals for Left theorists and political actors, Envisioning Real Utopias lays the foundations for a set of concrete, emancipatory alternatives to the capitalist system. Characteristically rigorous and engaging, this will become a landmark of social thought for the twenty-first century.
Design for Micro-Utopias
Author: John Wood
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-03-02
Total Pages: 231
ISBN-13: 135194519X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKEveryone is already painfully aware of our predicament - ecological extinctions, dwindling fossil fuel reserves and economic chaos. The solutions are less obvious, despite the many opportunities that surround us. We have never had more access to resources, knowledge and technology but this is not the problem. What we lack most is creative thinking, fuelled by collective optimism. In a pragmatic world run by careerist experts this is hardly surprising. As voters and consumers we are trained to choose and complain, but not how to envisage what we really, really want. How can we design a better world unless we revive the art of dreaming? For without dreams we are lost. Perhaps it should be the duty of all citizens to imagine alternative futures; in effect, to think more like designers. After all, designers have always been dreamers, and have often found ways to realize their dreams. Design for Micro-Utopias does not advocate a single, monolithic Utopia. Rather, it invites readers to embrace a more pluralized and mercurial version of Thomas More's famous 1516 novel of the same name. It therefore encourages the proliferation of many 'micro-utopias' rather than one 'Utopia'. This requires a less negative, critical and rational approach. Referencing a wide range of philosophical thinking from Aristotle to the present day, western and eastern spiritual ideals, and scientific, biological and systems theory, John Wood offers remedies for our excessively individualistic, mechanistic and disconnected thinking, and asks whether a metadesign approach might bring about a new mode of governance. This is a daring idea. Ultimately, he reminds us that if we believe that we will never be able to design miracles we make it more likely that this is so. The first step is to turn the 'impossible' into the 'thinkable'.
Rethinking Utopia
Author: David M. Bell
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-01-20
Total Pages: 305
ISBN-13: 1317486706
DOWNLOAD EBOOKOver five hundred years since it was named, utopia remains a vital concept for understanding and challenging the world(s) we inhabit, even in – or rather because of – the condition of ‘post-utopianism’ that supposedly permeates them. In Rethinking Utopia David M. Bell offers a diagnosis of the present through the lens of utopia and then, by rethinking the concept through engagement with utopian studies, a variety of ‘radical’ theories and the need for decolonizing praxis, shows how utopianism might work within, against and beyond that which exists in order to provide us with hope for a better future. He proposes paying a ‘subversive fidelity’ to utopia, in which its three constituent terms: ‘good’ (eu), ‘place’ (topos), and ‘no’ (ou) are rethought to assert the importance of immanent, affective relations. The volume engages with a variety of practices and forms to articulate such a utopianism, including popular education/critical pedagogy; musical improvisation; and utopian literature. The problems as well as the possibilities of this utopianism are explored, although the problems are often revealed to be possibilities, provided they are subject to material challenge. Rethinking Utopia offers a way of thinking about (and perhaps realising) utopia that helps overcome some of the binary oppositions structuring much thinking about the topic. It allows utopia to be thought in terms of place and process; affirmation and negation; and the real and the not-yet. It engages with the spatial and affective turns in the social sciences without ever uncritically being subsumed by them; and seeks to make connections to indigenous cosmologies. It is a cautious, careful, critical work punctuated by both pessimism and hope; and a refusal to accept the finality of this or any world.
Political Uses of Utopia
Author: S. D. Chrostowska
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2017-03-21
Total Pages: 403
ISBN-13: 0231544316
DOWNLOAD EBOOKUtopia has long been banished from political theory, framed as an impossible—and possibly dangerous—political ideal, a flawed social blueprint, or a thought experiment without any practical import. Even the "realistic utopias" of liberal theory strike many as wishful thinking. Can politics think utopia otherwise? Can utopian thinking contribute to the renewal of politics? In Political Uses of Utopia, an international cast of leading and emerging theorists agree that the uses of utopia for politics are multiple and nuanced and lie somewhere between—or, better yet, beyond—the mainstream caution against it and the conviction that another, better world ought to be possible. Representing a range of perspectives on the grand tradition of Western utopianism, which extends back half a millennium and perhaps as far as Plato, these essays are united in their interest in the relevance of utopianism to specific historical and contemporary political contexts. Featuring contributions from Miguel Abensour, Étienne Balibar, Raymond Geuss, and Jacques Rancière, among others, Political Uses of Utopia reopens the question of whether and how utopianism can inform political thinking and action today.
Utopia for Realists
Author: Rutger Bregman
Publisher: Little, Brown
Published: 2017-03-14
Total Pages: 226
ISBN-13: 0316471909
DOWNLOAD EBOOKUniversal basic income. A 15-hour workweek. Open borders. Does it sound too good to be true? One of Europe's leading young thinkers shows how we can build an ideal world today. "A more politically radical Malcolm Gladwell." -- New York Times After working all day at jobs we often dislike, we buy things we don't need. Rutger Bregman, a Dutch historian, reminds us it needn't be this way -- and in some places it isn't. Rutger Bregman's TED Talk about universal basic income seemed impossibly radical when he delivered it in 2014. A quarter of a million views later, the subject of that video is being seriously considered by leading economists and government leaders the world over. It's just one of the many utopian ideas that Bregman proves is possible today. Utopia for Realists is one of those rare books that takes you by surprise and challenges what you think can happen. From a Canadian city that once completely eradicated poverty, to Richard Nixon's near implementation of a basic income for millions of Americans, Bregman takes us on a journey through history, and beyond the traditional left-right divides, as he champions ideas whose time have come. Every progressive milestone of civilization -- from the end of slavery to the beginning of democracy -- was once considered a utopian fantasy. Bregman's book, both challenging and bracing, demonstrates that new utopian ideas, like the elimination of poverty and the creation of the fifteen-hour workweek, can become a reality in our lifetime. Being unrealistic and unreasonable can in fact make the impossible inevitable, and it is the only way to build the ideal world.
Utopianism: A Very Short Introduction
Author: Lyman Tower Sargent
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 2010-09-23
Total Pages: 160
ISBN-13: 0191614424
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThere are many debates about utopia - What constitutes a utopia? Are utopias benign or dangerous? Is the idea of utopianism essential to Christianity or heretical? What is the relationship between utopia and ideology? This Very Short Introduction explores these issues and examines utopianism and its history. Lyman Sargent discusses the role of utopianism in literature, and in the development of colonies and in immigration. The idea of utopia has become commonplace in social and political thought, both negatively and positively. Some thinkers see a trajectory from utopia to totalitarianism with violence an inevitable part of the mix. Others see utopia directly connected to freedom and as a necessary element in the fight against totalitarianism. In Christianity utopia is labelled as both heretical and as a fundamental part of Christian belief, and such debates are also central to such fields as architecture, town and city planning, and sociology among many others Sargent introduces and summarizes the debates over the utopia in literature, communal studies, social and political theory, and theology. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Utopian Designing - Developing a Community Strategic Plan for You and Future Generations
Author: Chmm Nancy Zikmanis
Publisher: Strategic Book Publishing Rights Agency
Published: 2014-04-22
Total Pages: 289
ISBN-13: 1628574070
DOWNLOAD EBOOKUtopian Designing is a complete guide to planning and implementing a development or redevelopment project, and includes templates, forms, and resources to help planners and others effectively and efficiently move through the process for the best "utopian" result. Sustainability consists of three different key concepts to be addressed: social equity, economics, and ecological/environmental health. It encompasses a wide variety of disciplines and ideas to reshape our actions and our way of thinking. It's important to understand these concepts, so decisions can be made outside the vacuum of city planners. Utopian Designing focuses on the strategic process, from design through implementation for development and redevelopment of an area. It also looks at sustainable principles to help a community thrive into the future; spur the public input process and information gathering options; obtain data evaluation to select the best project options; secure partnerships, resources, and funding options; and determine implementation strategies to bring a project to fruition. Strategies beyond implementation will ensure your development stays sustainable and meets your needs well into the future. Appendices provide resources and helpful templates to help move through your project's planning and implementation phases.
Utopia
Author: Thomas More
Publisher: e-artnow
Published: 2019-04-08
Total Pages: 105
ISBN-13: 8027303583
DOWNLOAD EBOOKUtopia is a work of fiction and socio-political satire by Thomas More published in 1516 in Latin. The book is a frame narrative primarily depicting a fictional island society and its religious, social and political customs. Many aspects of More's description of Utopia are reminiscent of life in monasteries.
Transgressive Design Strategies for Utopian Cities
Author: Bertug Ozarisoy
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2023-03-24
Total Pages: 291
ISBN-13: 1000854744
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book critically examines the philosophy of the term ‘transgression’ and how it shapes the utopian vision of contemporary urban design scenarios. The aim of this book is to provide scholarly yet accessible graphic novel illustrations to inform narratives of urban manifestos. Through four select case studies from the UK, Cyprus and Germany, the book highlights the paradoxes and contradictions in architecture and provides detailed evaluation of the limits and contemporary forms of sustainable urban regeneration. The book proposes an ‘utopian urban vision’ approach to social, political and cultural relations, trends and tensions – both locally and globally – and seeks to inspire an awakening in architectural discourse. The book argues that the philosophical undermining of transgression is the result of a phenomenon from a different perspective – its philosophical background, social construction, experimental research process and design implications on the city. As such, the book provides a critical examination of how architectural design interventions contribute to sustainable urban regeneration and gentrification and can impact local communities. This book provides a significant contribution to both undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as early career researchers working in architecture, planning and sustainable urban design. It offers effective guidance on adopting the state-of-the-art graphical illustrations into their own design projects, while considering contradictions between architectural discourse and the philosophy of transgression.
