Fool's Gold Utopianism in the Twenty-First Century [Hardcover]

What's wrong with the world today and how might it become better (or worse)? These are the questions pursued in this book, which explores the hopes and fears, dreams and nightmares of the 21st century. Through architecture, fiction, theory, film and experiments with everyday life, Sargisson explores contemporary hopes and fears about the future.List of Tables and Figures Prologue Acknowledgements Introduction: Fool's Gold Definitions, Debates and Conflicts: Utopianism, Anti-utopianism and Anti-Anti-Utopianism Religious Fundamentalism Feminism and Gender Sex and Sexual Identity Climate Change and Catastrophe Fiction Human Attitudes to Nature Green Intentional Communities Fantastic Architecture and the Case of Dubai Domestic Architecture: New Urbanism and Cohousing Computer Gaming Cloning, Cyborgs and Robots Conclusions Notes Appendix: Dubai Strategic Plan 2015 : Aims and Guiding Principles List of Primary Sources Bibliography

'Sargisson's Fool's Gold? endorses utopia as a continuing vehicle of social hope. Written with great clarity, it steers a confident course through complex theoretical debates. It then offers a fascinating exposition of utopian currents in the contemporary world, ranging across religion, politics, literature, the prefigurative practices of architecture and intentional communities, and the virtual worlds of computer gaming. It is essential reading for anyone who thinks that utopia is dead, as well as those who know or hope it is not.' - Professor Ruth Levitas, Department of Sociology, University of Bristol

'Fool's Gold? is a delight. It traverses complex moral territory, connects all sorts of disparate strands of contemporary thought, reveals the richness of both literary and experiential utopias, and provides an authoritative framework within which we can all re-evaluate our own ideas about utopia. For me, Lucy Sargisson succeeds in rehabilitating Utopianism as 'dangerous, but necessary' social phenomenl£8