Portable Utopia

Portable Utopia
Author: Bernard Aspinwall
Publisher: [Aberdeen] : Aberdeen University Press
Total Pages: 396
Release: 1984
Genre: Political Science
ISBN:

Macrolife

Macrolife
Author: George Zebrowski
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 452
Release: 2014-04-08
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1497634172

Subtitled “A Mobile Utopia,” this pioneering novel about the meaning of space habitats for human history, presents spacefaring as no work did in its time, and since. A utopian novel like no other, presenting a dynamic utopian civilization that transcends the failures of our history. Epic in scope, Macrolife opens in the year 2021. The Bulero family owns one of Earth’s richest corporations. As the Buleros gather for a reunion at the family mansion, an industrial accident plunges the corporation into a crisis, which eventually brings the world around them to the brink of disaster. Vilified, the Buleros flee to a space colony where young Richard Bulero gradually realizes that the only hope for humanity lies in macrolife—mobile, self-reproducing space habitats. A millennium later, these mobile communities have left our sunspace and multiplied. Conflicts with natural planets arise. John Bulero, a cloned descendant of the twenty-first century Bulero clan, falls in love with a woman from a natural world and experiences the harshness of her way of life. He rediscovers his roots when his mobile returns to the solar system, and a tense confrontation of three civilizations takes place. One hundred billion years later, macrolife, now as numerous as the stars, faces the impending death of nature. Regaining his individuality by falling away from a highly evolved macrolife, a strangely changed John Bulero struggles to see beyond a collapse of the universe into a giant black hole. Inspired by the possibilities of space settlements, projections of biology and cosmology, and basic human longings, Macrolife is a visionary speculation on the long-term future of human and natural history. Filled with haunting images and memorable characters, this is a vivid and brilliant work.

The Small Utopia

The Small Utopia
Author: Fondazione Prada
Publisher: Progetto Prada Arte Srl
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2012
Genre: Art
ISBN:

"In addition to a text by the curator, the volume contains essays by scholars, theorists and artists that take a historical, critical, philosophical and sociological look at the theme of multiplication in art through a variety of languages and media: magazines, books, radio, film, design, fashion, performance and editions of artists' originals and multiples, over a period that stretches from the historical Avant-Garde to the 1970s"--Page [11].

Macrolife

Macrolife
Author: George Zebrowski
Publisher: Pyr Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2006
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9781591023401

Simultaneous release with the print edition. Not since C.S. Lewis have we seen such enthralling fantasy tales for younger listeners. Extraordinary writing, captivating characters and enchanting stories from one of Australiae(tm)s most highly acclaimed writers of fantasy for young people. Little Fur is very old, though she looks more like a four-year-old child. She is half elf and half troll, and she lives in her very own wilderness, a patch of park, within the city where the humans live. Little Fur is distressed by what the humans are doing to her patch of wilderness - they are burning trees - and she must go on a perilous journey to prevent her precious home from being destroyed. She enlists the help of her friends: Brownie the shaggy Shetland pony, Crow the crow and the Sett Owl. This is a story full of magic and wonder, of unforgettable characters and exciting adventures.

The Individual and Utopia

The Individual and Utopia
Author: Clint Jones
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 545
Release: 2016-03-09
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317027574

Central to the idea of a perfect society is the idea that communities must be strong and bound together with shared ideologies. However, while this may be true, rarely are the individuals that comprise a community given primacy of place as central to a strong communal theory. This volume moves away from the dominant, current macro-level theorising on the subject of identity and its relationship to and with globalising trends, focusing instead on the individual’s relationship with utopia so as to offer new interpretive approaches for engaging with and examining utopian individuality. Interdisciplinary in scope and bringing together work from around the world, The Individual and Utopia enquires after the nature of the utopian as citizen, demonstrating the inherent value of making the individual central to utopian theorizing and highlighting the methodologies necessary for examining the utopian individual. The various approaches employed reveal what it is to be an individual yoked by the idea of citizenship and challenge the ways that we have traditionally been taught to think of the individual as citizen. As such, it will appeal to scholars with interests in social theory, philosophy, literature, cultural studies, architecture, and feminist thought, whose work intersects with political thought, utopian theorizing, or the study of humanity or human nature.

Britain and Transnational Progressivism

Britain and Transnational Progressivism
Author: D. Gutzke
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2016-04-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 0230614973

This collection of essaysexplores how Progressivism was the historical catalyst for reforms across the social and political spectrum in Britain for over half a century.

Laughter, Humor, and the (Un)making of Gender

Laughter, Humor, and the (Un)making of Gender
Author: A. Foka
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 389
Release: 2015-05-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1137463651

Humor is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. Throughout history, it has played a crucial role in defining gender roles and identities. This collection offers an in-depth thematic examination of this relationship between humor and gender, spanning a variety of historical and cultural backdrops.

The House of Moses All-Stars

The House of Moses All-Stars
Author: Charley Rosen
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Total Pages: 497
Release: 2012-05-15
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 160980371X

A New York Times Notable Book Here is the story of an all-Jewish basketball team traveling in a hearse through Depression-era America in search of redemption and big money. A hilarious road novel, The House of Moses All-Stars is also a passionate portrayal of a young Jewish man struggling to realize his dreams in a country struggling to recover its ideals. Charley Rosen gives us basketball as a metaphor for life. Aaron Steiner, the protagonist of The House of Moses All-Stars, is a man very close to the edge. The former college basketball star has watched his dreams of being a successful player fall apart, his marriage disintegrate, and his baby die. In desperation he accepts his friend’s offer to join a Jewish professional basketball team—The House of Moses All-Stars—which is traveling on a cross-country tour in a renovated hearse. Aaron’s teammates—a Communist, a Zionist, a former bank robber, and a red-headed Irishman who passes for a Jew—are, like Aaron, trying to escape their own troubled pasts. As the members of this motley crew travel west to California through an anti-Semitic land that disdains and rebuffs them, they discover a nation grappling with social and economic collapse and fear of foreigners, in conflict with its own democratic ideals of tolerance and opportunity. Told with a rueful eye, The House of Moses All-Stars looks critically and lovingly at what it means to be an outsider in America.

The Power of Cute

The Power of Cute
Author: Simon May
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2019-03-19
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0691185719

An exploration of cuteness and its immense hold on us, from emojis and fluffy puppies to its more uncanny, subversive expressions Cuteness has taken the planet by storm. Global sensations Hello Kitty and Pokémon, the works of artists Takashi Murakami and Jeff Koons, Heidi the cross-eyed opossum and E.T.—all reflect its gathering power. But what does “cute” mean, as a sensibility and style? Why is it so pervasive? Is it all infantile fluff, or is there something more uncanny and even menacing going on—in a lighthearted way? In The Power of Cute, Simon May provides nuanced and surprising answers. We usually see the cute as merely diminutive, harmless, and helpless. May challenges this prevailing perspective, investigating everything from Mickey Mouse to Kim Jong-il to argue that cuteness is not restricted to such sweet qualities but also beguiles us by transforming or distorting them into something of playfully indeterminate power, gender, age, morality, and even species. May grapples with cuteness’s dark and unpindownable side—unnerving, artful, knowing, apprehensive—elements that have fascinated since ancient times through mythical figures, especially hybrids like the hermaphrodite and the sphinx. He argues that cuteness is an addictive antidote to today’s pressured expectations of knowing our purpose, being in charge, and appearing predictable, transparent, and sincere. Instead, it frivolously expresses the uncertainty that these norms deny: the ineliminable uncertainty of who we are; of how much we can control and know; of who, in our relations with others, really has power; indeed, of the very value and purpose of power. The Power of Cute delves into a phenomenon that speaks with strange force to our age.