Further Reflections on Being a Utopian in These Times. Issue 2 (26th September 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Moylan, Tom
• Is Part Of: Open library of humanities. Volume 4:Issue 2(2018)
• Publication Date: 2018-09-26
• DOI: 10.16995/olh.264
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2056-6700

Abstract

In this essay (a revision of my contribution at the closing session of the Imaginaries of the Future Leverhulme Network held in London in September 2017), I offer a situated commentary (by 'me') on 'ourselves' (and I know that category has to be deconstructed, complicated, exploded, erased, and yet retained) as utopians and on the work 'we' do, and can do (for this was a utopian conference). I begin with a reflection on the current mobilization of the term dystopia as a signifier for our times, and as I do so I offer a counterpoint to the ideological appropriation of dystopia by way of my own argument in Scraps of the Untainted Sky (Westview 2000 ) for the militant pessimism of the critical dystopia. I then comment on several interrelated matters: the role of the utopian as scholar and as intellectual; the context and import of our work, in the academy and in the world; the utopian problematic (in its inclusion of the utopian object of study and utopia as method); and the necessity, indeed urgency, of 'our' work in these critical times. My aim is tease out the utopian surplus within the utopian formation.