Postmodern Utopias and Feminist Fictions

by Jennifer Wagner-Lawlor

This study examines feminist speculative fiction from the late twentieth- and early twenty-first century, and finds within it a new vision for the future. Rejecting notions of postmodern utopia as exclusionary, Jennifer A. Wagner-Lawlor advances one defined in terms of hospitality, casting what she calls “imaginative sympathy” as the foundation of utopian desire. Tracing these themes through the works of Atwood, Butler, Lessing, and Winterson, as well as those of well-known Muslim feminists such as El Saadawi, Parsipur, and Mernissi, Wagner-Lawlor balances literary analysis with innovative extensions of feminist philosophy to show how inclusionary utopian thinking can inform and promote political agency. Examining these contemporary fictions reveals the rewards of attending to a community that acknowledges difference, diversity, and the imaginative potential of every human being.

Genres: Feminism

250 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Isabella Ides · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this gem of a book while googling around for novels that might be akin to my work of speculative fiction: White Monkey Chronicles. I typed in the words: Postmodern, Utopia, Feminist and up popped this nonfiction work of critical analysis. I read it top to bottom, enjoying the intellectual parsing and the in depth survey of other women authors who have created speculative worlds in their novels: Margaret Atwood, Octavia Butler, Nalo Hopkinson, Doris Lessing, Jeanette Winterson, Toni Morrison, and Shahrnush Parsipur to name a few.

As an author I have been searching for the answer to the question: where does my work of fiction fit in the literary cosmos? I have lucked upon a very compelling Sisterhood, a utopia that transcends time and place. Open the door and let me in!

After reading Wagner-Lawlor's work, I have a clearer notion of some of the themes and tropes that connect me to these other writers. The one that most intrigues me is the notion of hospitality. Yes, the open door. Apparently feminist authors lean towards creating porous evolving utopias that open to a wide array of others. I love an idea that the author attributes to Fatima Mernissi: that an a ideal home or community is not only welcoming, but also honors the freedom to leave.

Another trope the women writers share are endings that are also beginnings, privileging the evolution over final solutions, what Wagnor-Lawlor calls the erotics of desires over the logic of conclusions.

This book is a feast for the reader who delights in the philosophy of ideas. Nothing dry here, the author ranges across a moist and fecund terrain.

[Lucas · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone working on Atwood, and particularly on her moral vision, I found this a refreshing and interesting way to approach exactly this question. Perhaps the thing I liked most about it was that Wagner-Lawlor cites Atwood as a constant challenge to exert our moral imaginations - to the extent that Atwood is quoted in several epigraphs, and in the introductory frame and final conclusions. A good work for Atwood scholarship, on the "ustopian" fictions.

I also know the work of several of the other authors cited in the study, and here too Wagner-Lawlor extends the framework of moral imagination successfully.

Perhaps the only claim I found surprising was that Jeanette Winterson's Stone Gods was a brilliant novel.