Utopia as Akairological Rupture

Bibliographic Data

ID4802469
AuthorsSunny Dhillon (0000-0002-6632-701X, Education Studies, Bishop Grosseteste University, Longdales Rd., Lincoln, LN1 3DY, UK, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume28
Issue6
Pages577-594
Publication date2023-08-18
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe European Legacy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1084-8770 • E-ISSN: 1470-1316
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10848770.2023.2204643
OpenAlexW4367300491
LanguageEN
References cited27

This article argues for a reconceptualization of utopia as akairological rupture. Its central thesis disputes the conventional reading of utopia as a teleological goal to be realized by a social collective. Thus rather than viewing the potentiality of utopia as a prescribed ideal commonwealth whose inhabitants live in harmony, I argue that it should be seen as an akairological rupture, manifested through a determinately negative, individual, approach. In this reading, utopia is primarily a social condition within culture, and perennially opposed to any ideal telos. This temporal and qualitative reconceptualization of utopia as disruptive is anathema to the positive reading that sees it as feasible through social reform and rational discourse. This reconceptualization argues for the importance of developing a reading of utopia that can transcend any reified, fixed conception that seeks to domesticate it in the service of a contingent political aspiration, however noble and humanitarian it may appear to be. Herein lies its critical potentiality under neoliberal conditions

Aesthetics · Dilemma · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Telos · Utopia · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Law · Philosophy · Political Economy and Marxism · Utopian, Dystopian, and Speculative Fiction

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