Catastrophe and Utopia studies the biographical trajectories, intellectual agendas, and major accomplishments of select Jewish intellectuals during the age of Nazism, and the partly simultaneous, partly subsequent period of incipient Stalinization. By focusing on the relatively underexplored region of Central and Eastern Europe – which was the primary centre of Jewish life prior to the Holocaust, served as the main setting of the Nazi genocide, but also had notable communities of survivors – the volume offers significant contributions to a European Jewish intellectual history of the twentieth century. Approaching specific historical experiences in their diverse local contexts, the twelve case studies explore how Jewish intellectuals responded to the unprecedented catastrophe, how they renegotiated their utopian commitments and how the complex relationship between the two evolved over time. They analyze proximate Jewish reactions to the most abysmal discontinuity represented by the Judeocide while also revealing more subtle lines of continuity in Jewish thinking. Ferenc Laczó is assistant professor in History at Maastricht University and Joachim von Puttkamer is professor of Eastern European History at Friedrich Schiller University Jena and director of the Imre Kertész Kolleg.

Probes the contested concept of utopia, examining the different ways in which it has been used by commentators and theorists in both liberal and Marxist radiations. The works of Karl Mannheim, Georges Sorel, Ernst Bloch, William Morris, and Herbert Marcuse are studied. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

In Re-Situating Utopia Matthew Nicholson challenges contemporary understandings of the place of utopianism in international law, promoting the value of an iconoclastic international legal utopianism that seeks to transcend the boundaries of contemporary reality.

Originally published in 1966. The main purpose of this book is not philosophical speculation, but to draw the obvious conclusions from political and historical facts about the prospects and methods of human political survival. The central theme is developed in the context of problems which cause most anxiety today: the mounting arms race, the unstable balance of power, the rapid growth of population, racial conflicts and ideological incompatibilities.

As a bold provocation to reimagine what the philosophy of education might mean in the 21st century, this book responds to the exhaustion of present theoretical models and indeed the degradation of fabulative thought in its current prospectus. The contributors, from Asia, the Americas, and Europe, proffer a frank response to the everyday reality of the classroom where teachers compete with electronic devices for the attention of students whose minds are literally elsewhere, cocooned in the noospheric ether. Outside of lecture halls the world is suffering the rise of fascism, panic, and anger driven by precarious employment, and a looming fatalism and resignation in the face of ecological calamity. These developments have led to an avalanche of psychical woes afflicting young people ranging from trauma, the loss of hope and, in extremis, violence and suicide. The concerned and committed writers of this volume therefore raise the timely question of the return of utopia as a fitting, desperate, and indeed necessary response to the ecological, existential, and pedagogical crises spreading across the planet. At this most crucial juncture in human history, the excellent contributions to this book offer singularly unique perspectives regarding the possibility/impossibility of utopia. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal, Educational Philosophy and Theory.

It has become clear that utopian thought has returned to the political scene. Featherstone traces the history of utopia and also discusses a number of contemporary case studies. This examination of the nature of utopian politics in the twenty-first century will be essential reading for political scientists and sociologists.

DIVThe end of the modern and the emergence of the postmodern in 1960s philosophy, literature, and popular culture./div

Featuring readings of contemporary utopian poetry and fiction from authors such as Juliana Spahr, Mohsin Hamid, Bong Joon-ho, Kim Stanley Robinson, Lidia Yukavitch, and Cory Doctorow, this book investigates the commons - a form of organisation based on collectivity, communalism and sharing - as a type of transition between capitalist precarity and crisis and anti-capitalist futures. Each of the texts under examination was written in opposition to a particular crisis of the capitalist present - inequality, political representation, mobility, and climate change - and develops a particular mode of utopian 'commoning'. Through its examination of these writers, crises and texts, this book reaffirms the use of utopianism as a tool for generating and representing alternative futures for a world in the midst of ongoing planetary crisis.

More than 700 'utopian' novels are published in Russia every year. These utopias – meaning here fantasy fiction, science fiction, space operas or alternative history – do not set out merely to titillate; instead they express very real Russian anxieties: be they territorial right-sizing, loss of imperial status or turning into a 'colony' of the West. Contributors to this innovative collection use these narratives to re-examine post-Soviet Russian political culture and identity. Interrogating the intersections of politics, ideologies and fantasies, chapters draw together the highbrow literary mainstream (authors such as Vladimir Sorokin), mass literature for entertainment and individuals who bridge the gap between fiction writers and intellectuals or ideologists (Aleksandr Prokhanov, for example, the editor-in-chief of Russia's far-right newspaper Zavtra). In the process The Post-Soviet Politics of Utopia sheds crucial light onto a variety of debates – including the rise of nationalism, right-wing populism, imperial revanchism, the complicated presence of religion in the public sphere, the function of language – and is important reading for anyone interested in the heightened importance of ideas, myths, alternative histories and conspiracy theories in Russia today.

Anarchy, State, and Utopia: An Advanced Guide presents a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the ideas expressed in Robert Nozick’s highly influential 1974 work on free-market libertarianism—considered one of the most important and influential works of political philosophy published in the latter half of the 20th-century. Makes accessible all the major ideas and arguments presented in Nozick’s complex masterpiece Explains, as well as critiques, Robert Nozick’s theory of free market libertarianism Enables a new generation of readers to draw their own conclusions about the wealth of timely ideas on individualism and libertarian philosophy Indicates where Nozick’s theory has explanatory power, where it is implausible, and where there are loose ends with further work to be done