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Ruth Levitas

Utopia as Method


The Imaginary Reconstitution of Society
2013. 288 S. 235 mm
Verlag/Jahr: SPRINGER PALGRAVE MACMILLAN 2013
ISBN: 0-230-23197-7 (0230231977)
Neue ISBN: 978-0-230-23197-9 (9780230231979)

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Utopia should be understood as a method rather than a goal. This book rehabilitates utopia as a repressed dimension of the sociological and in the process produces the Imaginary Reconstitution of Society, a provisional, reflexive and dialogic method for exploring alternative possible futures.
In this major new work by one of the leading writers on Utopian Studies, Ruth Levitas argues that a prospective future of ecological and economic crises poses a challenge to the utopian imaginary, to conceive a better world and alternative future. Utopia as Method does not construe utopia as goal or blueprint, but as a holistic, reflexive method for developing what those possible futures might be. It begins by treating utopia as the quest for grace, through a hermeneutics that recovers the utopian meaning in our culture, explored through colour and music. Moving from the existential to the social, it draws on H. G. Wells´s claim that the creation of utopias is the distinctive and proper method of sociology, and on the tentative reappearance of utopia in contemporary social theory. It proposes a constructive method, the Imaginary Reconstitution of Society. This fusion of explicitly normative social theory and analytic critique rehabilitates utopia as an integral part of sociology, and offers a means of collective engagement in shaping a better tomorrow.
Introduction PART I 1. From Terror to Grace 2. Riff on Blue 3. Echoes of Elsewhere PART II 4. Between Sociology and Utopia 5. Utopia Denied 6. Utopia Revised 7. The Return of the Repressed PART III 8. Utopia as Archaeology 9. Utopia as Ontology 10. Utopia as Architecture
Ruth Levitas is Professor of Sociology at the University of Bristol, founding Chair of the Utopian Studies Society Europe, and Chair of the William Morris Society. Her publications include The Concept of Utopia . In 2012 she received the Lyman Tower Sargent Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Utopian Studies.