Author of the masterpieces Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell, the nom de plume of Eric Arthur Blair, experienced, explored and explained some of the defining political, economic and social traumas of his time – predicaments that have, and will always be, part of Man’s infatuation with power and power politics. Orwell’s experiences of colonial exploitation in Burma, extreme poverty in Paris, London and the industrial North, and the horrors of ideological deceit and betrayal during the Spanish Civil War fashioned his literary persona, his political canon and influenced his vision of a future dystopia. This book explores Orwell’s journey to dystopia, using his major texts as milestones, and also examines the author as a divided self and as a chronicler of his age on a fateful journey to dystopia. Furthermore, it investigates his responses to the use of what he calls ‘force and/or fraud’ in the politics of his time, seeking a new understanding of the tensions and contradictions that characterise his writing. The analyses explain how authoritarian systems and totalitarian regimes manipulate power and employ pretence in order to divide the self and force individuals and society into obedience. The book argues that new insight into Orwell’s political views is gained by investigating Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince, where Machiavelli uses the phrase ‘force or fraud’ to encourage totalitarian tactics in running a State. Milestones on the Road to Dystopia: Interpreting George Orwell’s Self-Division in an Era of ‘Force and Fraud’ presents new insights that interpret the close relationship between self-division, paradox and the use of a pseudonym, demonstrating how they help in understanding Orwell’s character, works and the nature of totalitarian politics. Analysing self-division, both as an Orwellian trait and as a totalitarian strategy, and finding a connection with Machiavelli, against the milieu of Orwell’s development as a writer, is an intricate and interrelated topic that has not previously received critical attention, either in its individual parts or as an integrated study. This book establishes an essential template with which to analyse Orwell’s self-division apropos his growing fears of totalitarian power politics, and offers distinct analytical acumens that allow for an updated understanding of Orwell and of his relevance to political thought and the question of ‘common decency’ in twenty-first century literature and politics.

George Orwell (1903-1950) is one of the most influential authors in the English language. His landmark novels Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) have been translated into many foreign languages and inspired numerous stage and film adaptations. His well-known essays "A Hanging" and "Shooting an Elephant" are widely anthologized and often taught in college composition classes. The writer is credited with inventing the terms "Big Brother," "thought crime," "unperson" and "double think." His name itself has become an adjective--"Orwellian." Seventy years after its publication, Nineteen Eighty-Four remains very popular, its sales surging in an era of enhanced surveillance and media manipulation. This literary companion provides an extensive chronology and more than 175 entries about both his literary works and personal life. Also included are discussion questions and research topics, notable quotations by Orwell and an extensive bibliography of related sources.

Contesting the idea that the study of Anglophone literature and literary studies is simply a foreign import in Asia, this collection addresses the genealogies of textual critique and institutionalized forms of teaching of English language and literature in Asia through the 19th and 20th centuries, along with an examination of how its present options and possible future directions relate to these historical contexts. It argues that the establishment of Anglophone literature in Asia did not simply “happen”: there were extra-literary and -academic forces at work, inserting and domesticating in Asian universities both the English language and Anglo-American literature, and their attendant cultural and political values. Offering new perspectives for ongoing conversations surrounding the globalization of Anglophone literature in literary and cultural studies, the book also considers the practicalities of teaching both the language and its canon of classic texts, and that the historical formation and shape of English studies in Asia offers lessons that relate not only to the discipline but also may be applied to the humanities as a whole. ​

Since the birth of their nation, Americans have acted on the belief that theirs was a land of youth, a place destined to offer a fresh start to an aging world. No Country for Old Age tells this story from the founding period to our present moment, but not without exposing its darker side: rejuvenation has often bred grand expectations that end in division and despair. Mischa Honeck reveals how Americans of diverse backgrounds have sought not only to feel and look younger but also to breathe new life into their communities. Whether marching under the banners of science, public health, sexual liberation, physical fitness, nation-building, or world peace, these youth seekers have tended to paint their ventures in utopian colors. However, from the founders to today's Silicon Valley elites, anti-aging ventures have repeatedly magnified social inequalities, often projecting visions of society that have been unmistakably classist, racist, misogynist, and ageist. Today we are experiencing rejuvenation's Janus-faced legacy: As transhumanists rhapsodize about cyber-enhancing human bodies, ghastly pandemics, old-age poverty, and shrinking life expectancies are poised to become the new normal for many twenty-first-century Americans.

Winner, 2023 SFRA Book Award, Science Fiction Research Association A new wave of cutting-edge, risk-taking science fiction has energized twenty-first-century Chinese literature. These works capture the anticipation and anxieties of China’s new era, speaking to a future filled with uncertainties. Deeply entangled with the politics and culture of a changing China, contemporary science fiction has also attracted a growing global readership. Fear of Seeing traces the new wave’s origin and development over the past three decades, exploring the core concerns and literary strategies that make it so distinctive and vital. Mingwei Song argues that recent Chinese science fiction is united by a capacity to illuminate what had been invisible—what society had chosen not to see; what conventional literature had failed to represent. Its poetics of the invisible opens up new literary possibilities and inspires new ways of telling stories about China and the world. Reading the works of major writers such as Liu Cixin and Han Song as well as lesser-known figures, Song explores how science fiction has spurred larger changes in contemporary literature and culture. He analyzes key topics: variations of utopia and dystopia, cyborgs and the posthuman, and nonbinary perspectives on gender and genre, among many more. A compelling and authoritative account of the politics and poetics of contemporary Chinese science fiction, Fear of Seeing is an important book for all readers interested in the genre’s significance for twenty-first-century literature.

How the utopian tradition offers answers to today’s environmental crises In the face of Earth’s environmental breakdown, it is clear that technological innovation alone won’t save our planet. A more radical approach is required, one that involves profound changes in individual and collective behavior. Utopianism for a Dying Planet examines the ways the expansive history of utopian thought, from its origins in ancient Sparta and ideas of the Golden Age through to today's thinkers, can offer moral and imaginative guidance in the face of catastrophe. The utopian tradition, which has been critical of conspicuous consumption and luxurious indulgence, might light a path to a society that emphasizes equality, sociability, and sustainability. Gregory Claeys unfolds his argument through a wide-ranging consideration of utopian literature, social theory, and intentional communities. He defends a realist definition of utopia, focusing on ideas of sociability and belonging as central to utopian narratives. He surveys the development of these themes during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries before examining twentieth- and twenty-first-century debates about alternatives to consumerism. Claeys contends that the current global warming limit of 1.5C (2.7F) will result in cataclysm if there is no further reduction in the cap. In response, he offers a radical Green New Deal program, which combines ideas from the theory of sociability with proposals to withdraw from fossil fuels and cease reliance on unsustainable commodities. An urgent and comprehensive search for antidotes to our planet’s destruction, Utopianism for a Dying Planet asks for a revival of utopian ideas, not as an escape from reality, but as a powerful means of changing it.

There are many elements in the concept of visual continuity, and they are all interrelated. In films or film series that are described as sequels, establishing a visual integrity relationship between films comes to the fore. The concept of the sequel appears in two ways. Sometimes, while the ideas are scripted, the story is divided into more than one part. Sometimes the story is planned as a single movie, and after a certain time, it can be realized as a follow-up movie/film for different reasons. In both systems of expression, it is necessary to seek harmony between all elements of visual design. Examinations and Analysis of Sequels and Serials in the Film Industry examines certain contents through the concepts of cinematography and narrative, focusing more on the practical side of cinema and partially on the theoretical side. It examines samples, sequels, serials, and trilogy universes on the axis of cinematography and narration. Covering topics such as film landscape, repeated narrative elements, and storytelling, this premier reference source is an excellent resource for film industry workers, film students and educators, sociologists, librarians, academicians, and researchers.

The end of the world is a seemingly interminable topic Ð at least, of course, until it happens. Environmental catastrophe and planetary apocalypse are subjects of enduring fascination and, as ethnographic studies show, human cultures have approached them in very different ways. Indeed, in the face of the growing perception of the dire effects of global warming, some of these visions have been given a new lease on life. Information and analyses concerning the human causes and the catastrophic consequences of the planetary ‘crisis’ have been accumulating at an ever-increasing rate, mobilising popular opinion as well as academic reflection. In this book, philosopher Déborah Danowski and anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro offer a bold overview and interpretation of these current discourses on ‘the end of the world’, reading them as thought experiments on the decline of the West’s anthropological adventure Ð that is, as attempts, though not necessarily intentional ones, at inventing a mythology that is adequate to the present. This work has important implications for the future development of ecological practices and it will appeal to a broad audience interested in contemporary anthropology, philosophy, and environmentalism.