Ecological and Social Utopias

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:

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 .

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.

Course Themes

Ecological and Social Utopias

Literature, Art, and the Environment

Environmental Science and Skeptical Challenges

Activism and Entrepreneurship