Unpacking Utopia

English and American literary utopias often use a
travel narrative frame that presents more than a
simple formula for making their fantastic discoveries
and vicarious estrangements seem as credible,
entertaining, and useful to readers as the
real-life adventures and factual accounts of
exploration these fictions have imitated since
Columbus stumbled upon his "new world." What becomes
of utopianism''s claims to locate intellectual and
speculative resources for human liberation, communal
perfection, and civilized progress in the cultural
properties of imaginary foreigners once its
literature''s productive and restrictive relations to
the imperialist, colonialist, and capitalist
ideologies of so-called Western nations have been
exposed? For literary scholars, cultural
historians, and others interested in studying utopian
fiction''s generic construction from the
romanticizations of alienation and exploitation that
empowered 500 years of Anglophone empire-building,
this book offers its deconstructive analyses of
paradoxical utopia''s parodies of travel and its
discourses.

Autorentext

Jennifer Schwenk Nelson, Ph.D.: Completed doctoral studies inEnglish and American literature at the University of California,Riverside, with emphases in literary theory and modernism. Professor at the College of Southern Nevada, Las Vegas: Researchinterests include utopian and science fiction, travel literature,and postcolonial studies.

Klappentext

English and American literary utopias often use atravel narrative frame that presents more than asimple formula for making their fantastic discoveriesand vicarious estrangements seem as credible,entertaining, and useful to readers as thereal-life adventures and factual accounts ofexploration these fictions have imitated sinceColumbus stumbled upon his "new world." What becomesof utopianism's claims to locate intellectual andspeculative resources for human liberation, communalperfection, and civilized progress in the culturalproperties of imaginary foreigners once itsliterature's productive and restrictive relations tothe imperialist, colonialist, and capitalistideologies of so-called Western nations have beenexposed? For literary scholars, cultural historians, and others interested in studying utopianfiction's generic construction from theromanticizations of alienation and exploitation thatempowered 500 years of Anglophone empire-building,this book offers its deconstructive analyses ofparadoxical utopia's parodies of travel and itsdiscourses.