Andrew Milner, ed., Tenses of Imagination: Raymond Williams on Science Fiction, Utopia and Dystopia.

Abstract

Tenses of Imagination, an anthology of Raymond Williams's writings on science fiction, utopia and dystopia is the seventh volume in the growing Ralahine Utopian Studies Series. It is also, in my view, something of a treasure. For it not only offers an illuminating compendium of Williams's most important engagements, critical and creative, with SF, utopia and dystopia, but also furnishes us with a heretofore unavailable account of the long-term significance of these frequently spurned genres and modalities for the evolution of the thought of one of the past century's leading literary and cultural critics. The volume's editor, Andrew Milner, has divided Williams's writings into four parts: the first three are composed of a number of critical essays and interviews, while the fourth includes extracts from two of his rather infrequently read, future-oriented novels, The

Scientific and Theoretical Approaches to the Types of Dystopian Novels in the World Literature

“…Adabiyotshunoslar E.Batalov, B.Lanin, G.Morsonlarga koʻra, antiutopiyaning mohiyati utopiyani tubdan inkor etish, uning nafaqat utopik tafakkurini obroʻsizlantirish, balki adabiyotdagi utopik anʼanalar bilan polemika va ijtimoiy ideal muammosiga taʼsir qiluvchi oʻziga xos loyihadir [7]. B. Laninning "Adabiy utopiyaning anatomiyasi" maqolasida antiutopiyada utopik niyatli nizo borligi, yaʼni utopiya va antiutopiya bir-biriga qarama-qarshi, antiutopiyalarda utopik tushunchalar va gʻoyalarga taqlid allaqachon mavjud [8] ekanligi taʼkidlanadi. Lanin "Distopiya" atamasini umuman eʼtibor markaziga olmaydi va uni inkor qiladi.…”

Beyond Grammars of Utopia: Crisis of Imagination and Utopianism by Negation or Affirmation in James Joyce&rsquo;s <em>Ulysses</em>

“…Theoretically, the conceptualization of 'grammars of utopia' constitutes a first grammatical 'study of Utopian fantasy mechanics', as proposed by Fredric Jameson in his Archaeologies of the Future (2005, xiii). So far, genre studies have mapped utopian mechanics in semantic terms of (e)utopia (positive utopia), dystopia (negative utopia), and anti-utopia (failure of (e)utopia) (indicatively, Sargent 1994;Balasopoulos 2011;Braga 2018). The basis of the typological debate is a string of polarities: negations (the prefixes (o)u-, dys-, anti-) and affirmations (eu-).…”