Utopia against the welfare state: Rethinking utopia in an age of reproductive crises

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This essay uses the work the easiness and the loneliness (2013) by the Danish author Asta Olivia Nordenhof to examine the relationship between utopian imaginings and representations of everyday life. It also attempts to develop an alternative to the American literary theorist Fredric Jameson’s influential theories on the form and function of utopian writing. The context for Jameson’s theory of utopia is a diagnosis of our present characterised by our inability to conceive of any alternative; for Jameson, the principal function of utopian writing is its capacity to open the future as a site of alterity. Arguing that the last decade has seen our historical moment theorised as one incapable of sustaining itself, rather than characterised by the impossibility of imagining the future, the essay uses, among others, the French philosopher Miguel Abensour to articulate how the connection between utopia and the everyday might foster a new and more timely understanding of utopia.
Original languageEnglish
JournalTextual Practice
Volume37
Issue number9
Pages (from-to)1456-1474
Number of pages19
ISSN0950-236X
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

ID: 302833832