Dark Horizons: Science Fiction and the Dystopian Imagination [Paperback]

Raffaella Baccolini (Editor), Tom Moylan (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 19, 2003 | ISBN-10: 0415966140 | ISBN-13: 978-0415966146 | Edition: 1

With essays by an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars, Dark Horizons focuses on the development of the critical dystopia at the end of the twentieth century. In these narratives of imaginatively worse places than even the reality produced by the neo-conservative backlash of the 1980s and the neoliberal hegemony of the 1990s, utopian horizons stubbornly anticipate a different and more just world. The contributors explore this development in a variety of ways: by looking at questions of form, politics, the politics of form, and the form of politics. In a broader context, the essays connect their textual and theoretical analyses with historical developments such as the disaster of September 11th, the movement for historical reconciliation, the rise and downturn of the global economy, and the growth of anti-capitalist movements. Raffaella Baccolini, Ildney Cavalcanti, Jane Donawerth, Peter Fitting, Naomi Jacobs, Ruth Levitas, Tom Moylan, Lyman Tower Sargent, Lucy Sargisson, David Seed, Darko Suvin, Maria Varsam, Phillip E. We

Editorial Reviews

Review

Dark Horizons is a stimulating and imaginative set of essays which demonstrate the transgressive and polyvalent nature of contemporary science-fiction dystopias. They precipitate us into the twenty-first century with a sense of foreboding - but also of hope.
–Barbara Goodwin, Professor of Politics, University of East Anglia, Norwich

Dark Horizons is a timely and highly significant book bound to make readers reflect critically on what has happened to the utopian hope of the 1960s. A collection of essays on Anglo-American science fiction and film and the dystopian imagination superbly edited by Raffaella Baccolini and Tom Moylan, this volume sheds critical light on the propensity of many writers, filmmakers, and critics to depict dystopian views of the world during the dark times of the 1980s, 1990s, and the onset of the twenty-first century. Most of the essayists are leading scholars of utopian studies, and they cover a range of topics and works with perspicacity while carefully delineating notions of the utopian, eutopian, and dystopian. Altogether the essays constitute the first major attempt to come to terms with contemporary dystopian literature and film and to suggest alternative and critical readings that paradoxically reveal the hope of pessimism and skepticism.
–Jack Zipes, University of Minnesota

Dark Horizons is a valuable resource in utopian and sf studies.
–Graham J. Murphy, Science Fiction Studies, 2005

About the Author

Tom Moylan is Glucksman Professor of Contemporary Writing at the University of Limerick. He is author of Scraps of the Untainted Sky: Science Fiction, Utopia, Dystopia and Demand the Impossible: Science Fiction and the Utopian Imagination (Routledge), and coeditor of Not Yet: Reconsidering Ernst Bloch.
Raffaella Baccolini is Associate Professor of English at the University of Bologna.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (September 19, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415966140
• ISBN-13: 978-0415966146
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #494,911 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #69 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > History & Criticism