In the Place of Utopia

The discursive space once occupied by 'utopia' is changing. This book explores how that space is now overdetermined by a state of differentiation in how reality is represented, through the cultures of late-capitalism and bio-politics. Central to the prospects of transformative ideas, within that space, is the relation between language and the body.

Considerable socio-political change has re-configured the discursive space once occupied by 'utopia'. Within the cultures of late capitalism and the organisational matrices of bio-political administration, that space is no longer animated by images of idealised states that are yet to come, or by a sense of simple failure in the production of those same states. Rather, it is overdetermined by a condition of differentiation in the representation of reality. The origins of that differentiation of representation appear to lie deep within the modernist project. In the Place of Utopia explores how that condition of representation might be animated anew by the discursive circuits through which modernity has come to operate, so as to enliven the ability of transformative ideas to lever change from within a range of organic crises current to the world system: the financialisation of global capitalism; the subsumption of worker subjectivities to the logic of capital; the broadening of the metabolic rift through industrial-capitalism. Central to this animation of transformative ideas is the relationship between language and the body.

Autorentext

Warwick Tie lectures at Massey University, New Zealand, where he teaches Sociology. He convenes that institution s Sociology programme and was the inaugural director of the university s Centre for Justice and Peace Development. His work in Sociology has led to studies in the politics of conflict resolution and in the state of contemporary knowledge. He obtained his PhD in Sociology from Massey University.

Inhalt

Contents: Utopia: What is to be done? Mapping utopia Beyond the discursive space of utopia Back toward totality The psychic life of ideas The seeds of times future For the love of water The subjectivising effects of discursive spaces Anxieties of the utopian urge The sublime object(s) of utopia.