Literature
Margaret Atwood and Ustopia
Margaret Atwood strongly believes in the power of narrative. We write stories and they matter. To Atwood, they matter maybe more than anything else we do since they’re what we leave behind. […]
World Literature
Literature
Margaret Atwood‘s “The Handmaid’s Tale”
Atwood provides an analysis of power in “The Handmaid’s Tale” that is nuanced and complicated. She suggests that it’s very hard for someone who holds power to accurately assess how that power functions. […]
American Literature
Samuel Delany’s “Trouble on Triton : An Ambiguous Heterotopia”
With his ambiguous heterotopia, Samuel Delany is showing us that a perfect place is impossible. It’s definitely impossible in a postmodern world. […]
American Literature
Samuel Delany and Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble
Judith Butler’s work became one of the cornerstones of queer theory, of a gender politics that takes back the word queer, refusing to think of it as derogatory.
American Literature
Samuel Delany’s Heterotopia
Samuel Delany uses the term heterotopia as a subtitle of a novel which grapples with identity, sex, and gender. It focuses on how things and concepts such as gender can become impossible to name. […]
American Literature
Le Guin‘s “The Dispossessed”: The Anarchist Utopia of Anarres
Anarres is a utopian model. The environment is so harsh it brings out the best in people. There people own virtually nothing but have really important relationships with each other and with their work. […]
American Literature
“The Left Hand of Darkness”: A Gender Utopia?
In “The Left Hand of Darkness”, Genly is intrigued by the Gethenians, and sees the advantages of their gender system. […]
American Literature
Ursula Le Guin’s Science Fiction: Utopia and Uchronia
Le Guin, like other feminist science fiction writers, is clearly using sci-fi and utopia to explore gender issues. […]
American Literature
“1985”: Burgess’s Analysis of “A Clockwork Orange”
“1985” explores the question of how utopian or dystopian societies deal with those at the margins, whether they’re constructed as criminal or not. […]
American Literature
Free Will and the State: Kubrick and Burgess
Kubrick’s film version of “A Clockwork Orange” is strangely beautiful. The violence is clearly portrayed, but it’s also stylized in a way that makes it manageable. […]