#12227. Looking laterally: The literary utopia and the task of critical social theory

July 2026publication date
Proposal available till 19-05-2025
4 total number of authors per manuscript0 $

The title of the journal is available only for the authors who have already paid for
Journal’s subject area:
Sociology and Political Science;
Places in the authors’ list:
place 1place 2place 3place 4
FreeFreeFreeFree
2350 $1200 $1050 $900 $
Contract №12227.1 Contract №12227.2 Contract №12227.3 Contract №12227.4
1 place - free (for sale)
2 place - free (for sale)
3 place - free (for sale)
4 place - free (for sale)

Abstract:
This article is focused on exploring the value of literary utopias for social theory. The literary utopia appears irrelevant to sociology, its imaginative descriptions of social worlds are radically different and substantively better than our own seeming to skip over the central task of sociological enquiry: the diagnosis of society as it exists. In this article, the author aims to demonstrate that this is mistaken: the tradition of literary utopianising has much to contribute to sociology. Utopian authors have developed a sophisticated and original mode of social critique. The utopian text, in bricolating and remixing aspects of actually existing society, creates something both new and astonishing. In looking laterally at the world from the perspective of utopia, consciousness of the contradictions and repressions of the dominant relations in contemporary society is sharpened. The literary utopia demonstrates how the not yet realized norms of the author’s society can be fulfilled and discloses the hidden possibilities for new ways of living that are present but denied in the social world.
Keywords:
Critical theory; ideology; literature; possibility; utopia

Contacts :
0