Ecological and Social Utopias

Ecological and Social Utopias and Dystopias

See also Book Recommendations and Writing (for literature).

Utopia (literally no place) is a way of imagining how to make a better world. Often these represent a road not taken, a warning unheeded. A fine survey of them was done by Lewis Mumford,The Story of Utopias (New York: The Viking Press, 1962). He has influenced, among others, Amory Lovin, E.F. Schumacher, Murray Bookchin, and Marshall McLuhan.

News from Nowhere by William Morris "is a utopian socialist novel often ignored by Marxists and others who denounce it as backward-looking. It is true that Morris's vision of a society which has reverted to a more anti-technology agricultural base seems almost gentle by contemporary standards, but careful readers will gain insights into Morris's personal philosophy through this unique work." Morris was the founder of the Arts and Crafts Movement in UK, which spread to US, and inspired a DIY with natural materials mentality that still resonates. The book is recommended by Rebecca Solnit.

Another way of imaging a better world, more in harmony with nature, is to use Science Fiction: (20 said to change your life also NPR top 100)

Ray Bradbury homage. a very short 1951 story that prefigures America’s codependent love affair with cars. “The Pedestrian” isn’t Bradbury’s best work, but if you’ve ever been horrified by the degree to which affluent humans have holed up in their climate-controlled homes and SUVs, it just might send a shiver down your spine.

Newer

Adam Rex's young adult novel, The True Meaning of Smekda 2007, a weird, brilliant vision of an Earth invaded — and later abandoned — by a hostile alien race called the Boov.

Santa Cruz Island Fox recovery inspired novelist TC Boyle to write about it, When The Killing's Done.T.C. Boyle's A Friend of the Earth about a possible near future of global warming, includes a character presumably based on Julia Butterfly Hill, but also makes reference to other eco-folk we should all know about. Recommended.

Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, who "won the Turner Tomorrow Award's half-million-dollar first prize for this fascinating and odd book--not a novel by any conventional definition--which was written 13 years ago but could not find a publisher. The unnamed narrator is a disillusioned modern writer who answers a personal ad ("Teacher seeks pupil. . . . Apply in person.") and thereby meets a wise, learned gorilla named Ishmael that can communicate telepathically. The bulk of the book consists entirely of philosophical dialogues between gorilla and man, on the model of Plato's Republic." McH Stacks PS3567.U338 I8 1992

Cormac McCarthy The Road a very dark post-apocalyptic novel, winner of Pulitzer Prize by the author of No Country for Old Men review McH Stacks PS3563.A261 R63 2006

Classics

Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End, a guilty pleasure that has the power to transcend the terrestrial mediocrity of everyday life. (not necessarily environmental)

Callenbach, Ernest. Ecotopia (1975). This classic work gave a name to an entire science fiction subgenre. Ecotopia presents a first-person account of a U.S. American journalist visiting a break-away ecological utopia situated in Northern California. video interview. alt link. another talk

LeGuin, Ursula K. Always Coming Home (1985). PS3562.E42A79 1987

This masterwork by LeGuin is not so much a novel as a collection of ethnographic material on a future Californian people called the Kesh. The Kesh illustrate what LeGuin calls “yin utopia” – as opposed, of course, to the “yang” version – and their society features many common ecotopian and ecofeminist themes, including anarchist and matriarchal politics, small-is-beautiful economics, and appropriate technology.

Piercy, Marge. Woman on the Edge of Time (1976).

In this excellent novel, a woman diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia shuttles back and forth between our U.S. American present and two possible futures, one ecotopian and ecofeminist in bent, the other technocratic.

Robinson, Kim Stanley. Mars Trilogy : Red Mars (1993) , Green Mars (1994) , Blue Mars (1996).

Three Californias Trilogy : The Wild Shore (1984), The Gold Coast (1988), Pacific Edge (1990).

ed. Future Primitive: The New Ecotopias .

Kim Stanley Robinson has devoted his prolific sf career to proving that so-called “hard science fiction” need not be politically conservative; much of his fiction features ecotopian themes. His Mars Trilogy , winner of multiple sf awards, thematizes the terraforming of Mars, featuring multiple utopian societies and political debates between Greens and “Reds” – as the Mars Firsters are appropriately called. His Three Californias Trilogy takes place in three alternate versions of Orange County ; The Gold Coast PS3568.O2893 G65 1995 the last, Pacific Edge , PS3568.O2893 P3 1995 is the only properly ecotopian version. Future Primitive , as the subtitle indicates, is a collection of ecotopian stories, featuring fiction by LeGuin, Terry Bisson, and Rachel Pollack, among many others.

Starhawk. The Fifth Sacred Thing (1993).

Written by a popular proponent of ecofeminist spirituality, this novel contrasts a beautiful vision of ecotopian San Francisco with a horrifying fundamentalist theocratic Southern California .

Sterling, Bruce. Schismatrix Plus (1985+)

This post-novel by cyberpunk polemicist and founder of the Viridian eco-design movement details the ongoing war between “Shapers” and “Mechanists”, featuring in the process a variety of ecologically-oriented space societies.

Historical and Current Real Utopian Communes

Counterculture Through the Ages: From Abraham to Acid House Ken Goffman a.k.a. R.U. Sirius, Dan Joy

West of Eden: Communes and Utopia in Northern California

Paolo Soleri designed Arcosanti.

Course Themes

Ecological and Social Utopias

Literature, Art, and the Environment

Environmental Science and Skeptical Challenges

Activism and Entrepreneurship