Utopus Discovered A Most(ly) Informal Newsletter From the Society for Utopian Studies January 2010 Editorial In 1986, Professor Kenneth Roemer, then Utopus t-shirts, products, etc. Readers are encouraged to Discovered editor, said “considering the rather abrupt send in pictures of such things, or notes/reviews. appearances and disappearances of this little news- Depending on the amount of contributions we get, letter, it should probably be entitled Utopus Rediscov- we may even develop specially dedicated sections of ered Again Once More.” This, as it turns out, is still the newsletter—i.e. a recurring column on utopian a fitting moniker. Nevertheless, Utopus Discovered is songs/music. back (again), and with much in store. As the news- letter’s new editor, I hope to reinvigorate it with new Speaking of specially dedicated sections of the news- content, as well as with a web presence on the So- letter, Utopus Discovered will also feature a “Teacher’s ciety for Utopian Studies website (http://www.uto- Corner,” for which I will be working closely with the ronto.ca/utopia/). This is a task I am happy to take Society’s teaching committee. You can expect each on, but I’m sure there will be a little bit of a learning issue of the newsletter to include an edition of Teach- curve, so please bear with me. er’s Corner, which will delve into the world of uto- pian studies and teaching. There are exciting things One change readers familiar with the newsletter brewing in the teaching committee, so this new fea- might notice is in the title: Utopus Discovered is now ture should prove to be interesting and informative. “A Most(ly) Informal Newsletter,” which reflects the intention to include some decidedly more for- Utopus Discovered can only be as interesting as I hope mal content, such as articles produced by graduate to have made it sound here with your help. This is students, creative writing, reviews and more. The to say: please send anything you think relevant or utopian bibliography will also return. It is now be- worthy of being included to me at acohall26@gmail. ing maintained by Stephanie Stripling, and will be com. We could also use your help if you are will- linked to the SUS website instead of in the news- ing to review essays or creative writing before such letter itself. If you come across something that pieces are published in the newsletter or on its web should be included, Stephanie would be grate- page. If you are interested, please send me an e-mail ful if you would e-mail it to her at gooblet@gmail. re: submission reviews. com. Full length articles and short stories will also be posted on the website, with abstracts and ex- I look forward, as new Utopus Discovered editor, to cerpts here in the newsletter—enough hopefully to bringing you the very best I can in newsletter-style pique your interest and get you to the web page. content and more, and I hope you’ll send me your feedback about each issue so I can improve the over- Additionally, Professor Roemer suggested at the all quality. I would like to thank the members of Steering Committee meeting at this year’s confer- the Steering Committee for being so welcoming and ence that pop culture artifacts related to utopia get encouraging, and I only hope I can live up to their some attention here, which could mean songs, games, expectations. Here goes. —Alex Hall 1 Utopus Discovered ing of the Society for Utopian Studies will be held October 28th to 31st, 2010 at the Hilton Milwaukee City Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The theme at this the 35th meeting is “Civil Rights, Social Jus- tice, and the Midwest.” Peter Sands will serve as the local chair, while Brian Greenspan will serve as program chair. Membership Update Please note that we have altered the terms of the membership year to bring it in line with our annu- Photo courtesy of Carrie Hintz al conference schedule. Effective immediately, the membership year will now run from October 1st to Carolinatopia September 30th. Accordingly, if you joined the so- ciety on a one-year membership before October 1, The Society for Utopian Studies descended upon 2009, your membership has now expired, and we en- the small beach town of Wrightsville Beach, North courage you to renew at this time by visiting: Carolina October 29th to November 1st for its 34th Annual Meeting. There were 108 registrants, with http://www.utoronto.ca/utopia/join.html slightly fewer participants due to illness. The confer- ence included thirty-four panels, a keynote address However, in order to help smooth this transition, all by Fredric Jameson (with commentary by Phil We- 2009 members will continue to receive new issues gner, Kathi Weeks and Doryjane Birrer), and ended of Utopian Studies in 2010 free of charge. (Current with a roundtable on the contributions of Art Lewis. two-year memberships will remain active until Sep- The panels and papers ranged from ancient Egypt tember 30, 2010.) For questions or concerns, please to China to Chicago, from food to death to Blondie; contact Brian Greenspan: brian_greenspan@car- the diversity of panel topics illustrated the vibrant leton.ca. community of engaged utopian scholars that the So- ciety for Utopian Studies promises. The beach scene *** provided an excellent backdrop that proved not too distracting from the intellectual pleasures of panel attendance—just distracting enough, as it were. —Claire Curtis & Alex Hall Society News 35th Annual Meeting Photo by Alex Hall Utopia for Your Feet As you’ve no doubt already noticed on the back of Found at a Target store in Stow, Ohio this issue of Utopus Discovered, the next Annual Meet- 2 Utopus Discovered ing my way outside a nurturing home, like many a “teenager” (to use the term invented at the time) I felt constrained by what I saw as the limitations of my upbringing, but I also was uneasy and empty in the world around me. And so, in my refusal of main- stream society—one that I later learned to call post- fordist, imperialist America (rife with its militarism, anti-communism, racism, sexism and homophobia, and its drive to reduce everyone to one-dimensional consumers)—I turned to more meaningful alterna- tives rooted in those early contexts: in a class identi- ty that stood against wealth and privilege, a Catholi- cism that called for social justice, and an emergent youth culture that found freedom in its refusal of Photo courtesy of Tom Moylan consumerism and conformity. “How I Came to Utopia” That existential mix of rebellion, solidarity, and an- ticipation took on a more focused shape in my high Tom Moylan is Emeritus Professor in the School of Lan- school years. In my reading and nascent political ac- guages, Literature, Culture, and Communication at the tivism, I began to understand that people could in- University of Limerick, where he also is the founding di- deed make sense of why and how the world worked rector of the Ralahine Centre for Utopian Studies and co- and what might be done to make it better. I began editor of the Ralahine Utopian Studies Book Series. He is to appreciate how a radical vision of a transformed the author of Demand the Impossible: Science Fiction world could offer a motivating horizon of hope. My and the Utopian Imagination and Scraps of the Un- reading took me into science fiction with its new tainted Sky: Science Fiction, Utopia, Dystopia and maps of hell and its exciting new futures, into the many essays on utopia, dystopia, and political agency. He social teachings of post-Vatican II Catholic thought, is co-editor of Not Yet: Reconsidering Ernst Bloch and into the radical imagination of the cultural, bo- (with Jamie Owen Daniel), Dark Horizons: Science hemian Left. My activism started in the ranks of the Fiction and the Dystopian Imagination and Utopia- Young Christian Students, with their dual project Method-Vision: The Use Value of Social Dreaming of confronting both American secular society and (with Raffaella Baccolini), and Exploring the Utopian communism; but soon YCS linked up with the anti- Impulse: Essays on Utopian Thought and Practice bomb and civil rights movements, and this shift from (with Michael J. Griffin). Dr. Moylan is also the 2008 right to left opened me to new perspectives and new recipient of the Society’s Lyman Tower Sargent Award for political goals. Distinguished Scholarship. Here he explains how he became interested in Utopian Studies. By the end of college in 1965, I was moving away from Left Catholicism and toward a secular, social- It wasn’t scholarship that brought me to Utopia. ist/communist stance in my involvement in the move- That came later. Long before my studies, I already ments against racism and war and for liberation (of felt displaced in the enclosing present of 1950s Chi- nation, gender, sexuality). In the “politics of choice” cago; and I was drawn to other worlds, other ways, of the sixties (wherein women and men took control as I both embraced and pushed against the nets of my of their bodies and their selves, claimed their sexual social milieu (Irish, Catholic, working class). Find- and reproductive freedom, and refused to be part of 3 Utopus Discovered the machinery of capital and war), I continued my Suvin and his important essays on sf and utopia). civil rights work in inner city Milwaukee and be- My political work in the national New Left brought came a conscientious objector and organizer in the me in 1977 to the first meetings of the Marxist Liter- anti-war, anti-draft resistance to the American em- ary Group, organized by Fred Jameson and Stanley pire.