Utopias have nowhere left to hide in an era of global capital and information flows. Imagining the perfect society means envisioning global as much as, or more than, national or local change. Labor is transformed as heavy industry relentlessly relocates. Post-industrial refugees chase immaterial wealth flowing across borders that are porous for information and capital, but not for bodies. Even leisure becomes work when corporations mine Twitter and Facebook for content to monetize, while gamifying daily life. Under such conditions, visualizing a utopian balance of work and play grows both more difficult and more urgent.
Papers are welcome on all aspects of the utopian tradition, from the earliest utopian visions to the utopian speculations and yearnings of the 21st century, including art, architecture, urban and rural planning, literary utopias, dystopian writings and films, utopian political activism, theories of utopian spaces and ontologies, music, new media, and intentional communities. We especially welcome papers and panels on games, gamers and gamification; utopian and dystopian aspects of globalization; and non-Western utopian traditions.
For more information visit http://utopian-studies.org/conference2014
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