Unpacking Utopia: Uncustomary Inspections of the Ideological Baggage of Exploration, Empire, and Otherness in Selected English and American Utopian Fictions

by Jennifer Nelson

English and American literary utopias often begin as travelers' tales, reminding readers of real-life explorers and their adventures in lands foreign to them.  Utopias may rely on this narrative ruse to lend credibility and utility to fantastic discoveries and vicarious estrangements otherwise dismissed as mere entertainments, but what if imitation is more than flattery?  What becomes of utopianism's claims to find intellectual and speculative resources for human liberation, communal perfection, and civilized progress in the cultures of imaginary foreigners once utopian literature's reproductions of the imperialist, colonialist, and capitalist ideologies of so-called Western nations have been exposed? For literary scholars, cultural historians, and others interested in studying utopian fiction's romanticizations of the alienation and exploitation that have empowered 500 years of Anglophone empire-building, this book offers its deconstructive analyses of paradoxical utopia's parodies of global travel and its discourses.

292 pages, Paperback

Published May 13, 2009

About the author

As executive producer at Classic FM, Jennifer Nelson works with presenters including Alexander Armstrong and Bill Turnbull. She has produced Classic FM's weekly film music programme since 2014, interviewing many of the directors and composers featured in this book. She has won Gold Sony Radio Academy Awards as producer of music documentaries for BBC 6 Music and Absolute Radio, and was named 'Producer of the Year' at the inaugural Global Awards in 2015. She is currently studying part-time at Birkbeck University for a Creative Industries Management MSc and when she isn't in the radio studio or university library, can often be found in the cinema.