Irretrievable failure
Life in the ruins of utopian dreaming
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3424739 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Matt Coward (0000-0003-1336-4017, Queen Mary University of London), Debbie Lisle (0000-0003-3413-5109, Queen's University Belfast) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Publication date | 2025-09-24 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | European Journal of Social Theory (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1368-4310 • E-ISSN: 1461-7137 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/13684310251379196 |
| OpenAlex | W4414472704 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 37 |
Our present is marked by multiple failures: of governance; of care; of hope. Amidst the wreckage, we see numerous attempts - real and imagined - to keep hope alive by dreaming of a better future. Such utopian exhortations are fuelled by the idea that it is not too late - we still have time to correct our failures. This secures a particular futurity for failure: we speculate on a utopian tomorrow to counteract the pressing failures of today, and we implement lessons today to course correct for a better future. We argue that it is already too late for such social dreaming. We turn instead to the uneven potentialities of the current 'failure-scene' through accounts of non-redemptive failure that refuse the normative coordinates of hope; flatten the elongated present of the ruins; endure the event-oriented temporality of crisis thinking; and improvise with whatever tools and energies are available to us
In the break
The Philosophy of Improvisation
Native Liberty
Being Ecological
In the Wake
Cruel Optimism
Global polycrisis
Abandoning Time
Generative Refusal
Anishinaabe Ways of Knowing and Being
Fool's Gold
World of the Right
Utopia as Method
No Intentions? Utopian Theory After the Future
Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor
Rethinking Utopia as Form
Mobilitas Animi
Affect and the Response to Terror
The Necessity of Hope in Dystopian Times
Grounded Utopia
Ontological Terror
Utopia, Breakdown, Repair
Progress Versus Utopia; or, Can We Imagine the Future
Black Nihilism and the Politics of Hope
Improvising urban spaces, inhabiting the in-between
The ruse of consent and the anatomy of 'refusal
Indigenous science (fiction) for the Anthropocene
Eco-Miserabilism and Radical Hope
The Queer Art of Failure
The Mushroom at the End of the World
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 5 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |