Author Archives: ncsteph

Binishells

Posted on by
Reply

Environmental Utopian Architecture!

“This patented technology in based on the radical notion of replacing formwork and heavy machinery with air. The system, developed by Dr. Dante Bini in the 60’s uses low air pressure to lift and shape wet concrete and reinforcing steel. More than 1,600 buildings have been built using this system in 23 countries. The system has been recently improved, rendered more environmental and architecturally flexible. Today Binishells use 80% less materials, have 95% of the embodied CO2 and have a carbon footprint 80% smaller than traditional construction.”

Found at superforest.org.

Website.

Utopian Studies, vol 20, no 2

Posted on by
Reply

A publication of the Society for Utopian Studies, 2009.

Included in this volume are the following articles:

“Morris, Wilde, and Le Guin on Art, Work, and Utopia” by Laurence Davis

“Where Is Utopia in the Brain?” by Daniel S. Levine

“Unlikely Utopians: Solomon Schindler, Henry Mendes, and American Judaism in the 1890s” by Justin Nordstrom

“Coming Home: The Evolutionary Roots of Utopia” by Jon Wagner

Website.

Utopian Studies, vol 20, no 1

Posted on by
Reply

A publication of the Society for Utopian Studies, 2009.

Included in this volume are the following articles:

“Socioeconomic Utopianism in Spain at the End of the Nineteenth Century: La Nueva Utopía by Ricardo Mella” by José Luis Ramos-Gorostiza

“Homus Novus: The New Man as Allegory” by Natalia Skradol

“Embodied Anarchy in Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed by Daniel P. Jaeckle

“Visions of Happiness: Daoist Utopias and Grotto Paradises in Early and Medieval Chinese Tales” by Sing-chen Lydia Chiang

“The Shaker ‘Gift’ Economy: Charisma, Aesthetic Practice and Utopian Communalism” by Janet Sarbanes

“When Science Fiction Writers Used Fictional Drugs: Rise and Fall of the Twentieth-Century Drug Dystopia” by John Hickman

Website.

Cities of God: The Religion of the Italian Communes, 1125-1325

Posted on by
Reply

Author: Augustine Thompson, O.P.

Publication Info: Penn State Press, 2005.

“Thompson positions the Italian republics in sacred space and time.He maps their religious geography as it was expressed throughpolitical and voluntary associations, ecclesiastical and civil structures,common ritual life, lay saints, and miracle-working shrines.He takes the reader through the rituals and celebrations of the communalyear, the people’s corporate and private experience ofGod, and the “liturgy” of death and remembrance.In the process he challenges a host of stereotypes about “orthodox” medieval religion, the Italian city-states, and the role of new religious movements in the world of Francis of Assisi, Thomas Aquinas, and Dante.”

PSUP Website

Collective Dreams: Political Imagination and Community

Posted on by
Reply

Author: Keally McBride

Publication Info: Penn State Press, 2005.

“How do we go about imagining different and better worlds for ourselves? Collective Dreams looks at ideals of community, frequently embraced as the basis for reform across the political spectrum, as the predominant form of political imagination in America today. Examining how these ideals circulate without having much real impact on social change provides an opportunity to explore the difficulties of practicing critical theory in a capitalist society.”
PSUP Website

Utopian Studies, vol 21, no 1

Posted on by
Reply

A publication of the Society for Utopian Studies, 2010.

Included in this volume are the following articles:

“Preliminary Sketches for the Reappearance of HyBrazil” by Sean Lynch

“A Conversation at Sea” by Matt Packer and Sean Lynch

“Utopian Studies, Environmental Literature, and the Legacy of an Idea: Educating Desire in Miguel Abensour and Ursula K. Le Guin” by Christine Nadir

“Sinking ‘Like a Corpse’ or Living the ‘Soul’s Full Desire’: Shaker Women in Fiction and History” by Richard M. Marshall

“Scottish Utopian Fiction and the Invocation of God” by Timothy C. Baker

“A Grenade With the Fuse Lit: William S. Burroughs and Retroactive Utopias in Cities of the Red Night” by Sean Grattan

“Michael Flürscheim: From the SIngle Tax to Currency Reform” by Lyman Tower Sargent

Website.

Community Reading and Social Imagination

Posted on by
Reply

Authors: Michael Bérubé, Hester Blum, Christopher Castiglia, and Julia Spicher Kasdorf

Publication Info: PMLA. 125.2. The Modern Language Association of America (March 2010): 418-425.

This article is written by four colleagues in the Penn State English department who believe that “reading is a powerful vehicle for community building, for democratic deliberation, and for imaginative reinvention of seeming inevitabilities”. The article discusses the value of community reading within this context.

Online Access .

Red Planets: Marxism and Science Fiction

Posted on by
Reply

Authors: Mark Bould and China Miéville

Publication Info: Wesleyan University Press distributed by University Press of New England, 2009.

“A critical exploration of the connections between science fiction and Marxism

Science fiction and socialism have always had a close relationship. Many science fiction novelists and filmmakers have used the genre to examine explicit or implicit Marxist concerns. Red Planets is an accessible and lively account, which makes an ideal introduction to anyone interested in the politics of science fiction. The volume covers a rich variety of examples from Weimar cinema to mainstream Hollywood films, and novelists from Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, Philip K. Dick, and Thomas Disch to Ursula K. Le Guin, Kim Stanley Robinson, Ken MacLeod, and Charles Stross. Contributors include Matthew Beaumont, William J. Burling, Carl Freedman, Darren Jorgensen, Rob Latham, Iris Luppa, Andrew Milner, John Rieder, Steven Shaviro, Sherryl Vint, and Phillip Wegner.”

Website.

The Science Fiction Handbook

Posted on by
Reply

Authors: M. Booker and Anne-Marie Thomas

Publication Info: West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, 2009.

“The Science Fiction Handbook offers a comprehensive and accessible survey of one of the literary world’s most fascinating genres.

Includes separate historical surveys of key subgenres including time-travel narratives, post-apocalyptic and post-disaster narratives and works of utopian and dystopian science fiction

Each subgenre survey includes an extensive list of relevant critical readings, recommended novels in the subgenre, and recommended films relevant to the subgenre

Features entries on a number of key science fiction authors and extensive discussion of major science fiction novels or sequences

Writers and works include Isaac Asimov; Margaret Atwood; George Orwell; Ursula K. Le Guin; The War of the Worlds (1898); Starship Troopers (1959); Mars Trilogy (1993-6); and many more

A ‘Science Fiction Glossary’ completes this indispensable Handbook”

Website.

Fifty Key Figures in Science Fiction

Posted on by
Reply

Authors: Mark Bould, Andrew M. Butler, Adam Roberts and Sherryl Vint.

Publication Info: New York: Routledge, 2009.

“Fifty Key Figures in Science Fiction is a collection of engaging essays on some of the most significant figures who have shaped and defined the genre. Diverse groups within the science fiction community are represented, from novelists and film makers to comic book and television writers. Important and influential names discussed include:

Octavia Butler

George Lucas

Robert Heinlein

Gene Roddenberry

Stan Lee

Ursula K. Le Guin

H.G. Wells

This outstanding reference guide charts the rich and varied landscape of science fiction and includes helpful and up-to-date lists of further reading at the end of each entry. Available in an easy to use A-Z format, Fifty Key Figures in Science Fiction will be of interest to students of Literature, Film Studies, and Cultural Studies.”

Website.