Re-searching Utopia


Book Description

This book sets out on a journey of discovery to find the contemporary role and possibilities offered by utopias.The great majority of architectural productions attempts to satisfy our everyday needs and to maintain the status quo of this basic requirement, an effort which is generally dubbed the state of the art. But architects of all times have simultaneously attempted to leave these limitations behind them and to propose entirely innovative paths, challenging the status quo of their environments and creating something entirely new. History has consistently demonstrated that utopias have always been developed against the most varied backgrounds: Utopias have appeared as a reaction to crisis situations, as visions for a new start or as carriers for innovation. During the 1960s and 70s in particular utopias served as a source of inspiration for many architects. In the following decades utopias continued to be a relevant issue in the humanities, but now tended to be pushed aside in architectural discourse. "Re-searching Utopia" sets out on a journey of discovery to find the contemporary role and possibilities offered by utopias.




Searching for Utopia


Book Description

In Searching for Utopia, Hanna Holborn Gray reflects on the nature of the university from the perspective of today’s research institutions. In particular, she examines the ideas of former University of California president Clark Kerr as expressed in The Uses of the University, written during the tumultuous 1960s. She contrasts Kerr’s vision of the research-driven “multiveristy” with the traditional liberal educational philosophy espoused by Kerr’s contemporary, former University of Chicago president Robert Maynard Hutchins. Gray’s insightful analysis shows that both Kerr, widely considered a realist, and Hutchins, seen as an oppositional idealist, were utopians. She then surveys the liberal arts tradition and the current state of liberal learning in the undergraduate curriculum within research universities. As Gray reflects on major trends and debates since the 1960s, she illuminates the continuum of utopian thinking about higher education over time, revealing how it applies even in today’s climate of challenge.




Searching for Utopia


Book Description

An illustrated history of a perennially powerful idea: the quest for the ideal society from classical times to the present day.




Finding Utopia


Book Description

A soccer-loving brother and sister, along with the Aboriginal exchange student that lives with their family, travel to Australia to find out if it is Utopia, and learn a lot along the way.




Utopia Is Creepy: And Other Provocations


Book Description

A freewheeling, sharp-shooting indictment of a tech-besotted culture. With razor wit, Nicholas Carr cuts through Silicon Valley’s unsettlingly cheery vision of the technological future to ask a hard question: Have we been seduced by a lie? Gathering a decade’s worth of posts from his blog, Rough Type, as well as his seminal essays, Utopia Is Creepy is “Carr’s best hits for those who missed the last decade of his stream of thoughtful commentary about our love affair with technology and its effect on our relationships” (Richard Cytowic, New York Journal of Books). Carr draws on artists ranging from Walt Whitman to the Clash, while weaving in the latest findings from science and sociology. Carr’s favorite targets are those zealots who believe so fervently in computers and data that they abandon common sense. Cheap digital tools do not make us all the next Fellini or Dylan. Social networks, diverting as they may be, are not vehicles for self-enlightenment. And “likes” and retweets are not going to elevate political discourse. Utopia Is Creepy compels us to question the technological momentum that has trapped us in its flow. “Resistance is never futile,” argues Carr, and this book delivers the proof.




Researching Resistance and Social Change


Book Description

Provides a robust theoretical and methodological framework for researching of resistance and social change.




Re-Situating Utopia


Book Description

In Re-Situating Utopia Matthew Nicholson challenges contemporary understandings of the place of utopianism in international law, promoting the value of an iconoclastic international legal utopianism that seeks to transcend the boundaries of contemporary reality.




Utopia's Ghost


Book Description

Written at the intersection of culture, politics & the city, particularly in the context of corporate globalization, 'Utopia's Ghost' challenges dominant theoretical paradigms & opens new avenues for architectural scholarship & cultural analysis.




In Utopia


Book Description

Chronicling one man's search to find the meaning of Utopia in our present-day world, "In Utopia" explores the history of utopian literature and thought in the narrative context of the real-life fruits of that history. b&w illustrations.




Utopia


Book Description

Utopia is a work of fiction and socio-political satire by Thomas More published in 1516 in Latin. The book is a frame narrative primarily depicting a fictional island society and its religious, social and political customs. Many aspects of More's description of Utopia are reminiscent of life in monasteries.