Nice reminder from Florian Waldow (Humboldt Uni) that "utopia" is spatial and not at all temporal. Today's usage as future-oriented should really be "Uchronia".
"This book connects a cross-section of educators, researchers and administrators in a dialogue and exploration of imaginative and creative ways of teaching, learning and conducting educational inquiry"
@impactology We have bits and pieces in Learning, Media and Technology ok these issues. (Often, but not always, open access) Including Sian’s recent piece on Digital utopias. Maybe you’ll find interesting reading there? #imagination#utopia#speculativemethods
"spare a little sympathy for the conservative movement here. The fact that reality has a pronounced leftist bias must be really frustrating for the ideological project of insisting that anything the market can't provide is literally impossible" -- @pluralistic
Self-interest + shortermism + monopoly power = whatever this shit is:
"Frontier knew that it could make a billion dollars in profit over a decade by investing in fiber build-out, but it chose not to, because stock analysts will downrank any carrier that made capital investments that took more than five years to mature. Because Frontier's execs were paid primarily in stock, they chose... to leave a billion dollars sitting on the table..."
Residents of 21 cities in Utah have access to some of the fastest, most competitively priced broadband in the US, at speeds up to 10gb/s and prices as low as $75/month. It's uncapped, and the connections are symmetrical: perfect for uploading and downloading. And it's all thanks to the government.
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
"Hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We’ll need writers who can remember freedom — poets, visionaries — realists of a larger reality."
The Illustrated Map of America’s Worst Utopias - The road to weird food communes and sex cults is paved with good intentions. by Lauren Young September 12, 2016
"There are many who want to believe that a utopia—a perfect society, an ideal world—can exist. Even in America..."
Or, America may just be too full of greedy, selfish asshats.
It's Thursday so here's a throwback to a really old poster for Utopia. It's always interesting to look back at old work to see how far you've progressed as an artist.
Absolutely loved this series (the original British version ofc) and talk about life imitating art! I reckon it's due a rewatch soon to remind myself of its parallels with the pandemic and all the mad conspiracy theories that inevitably followed 💛
Today In Labor History March 26, 1850: Edward Bellamy was born. Bellamy was an American author and socialist political activist, most well-known for his utopian novel, “Looking Backward,” one of the most commercially successful books published in the 19th century. It particularly appealed to the intellectuals who were alienated by the Gilded Age greed, corruption and violence. His book inspired many to form so-called “nationalist clubs” to implement his ideas of a society free of private property, social classes, war, poverty, crime, lawyers, politicians, prostitution, merchants, soldiers, and taxes. Plus, everyone could retire by the age of 45. He died at the age of 48 from tuberculosis.
#writerscoffeeclub
5. Where do you see the future of publishing in ten years' time?
I predict that there will be an enormous demand of alternate world fiction that imagines what the US would be like if it hadn't descended into Christo-fascism. Publishers will be falling over each other in search of titles, which will promptly be banned, increasing demand even more.
Electric City The Lost History of Ford and Edison's American Utopia by Thomas Hager
The extraordinary, unknown story of two giants of American history—Henry Ford and Thomas Edison—and their attempt to create an electric-powered city of tomorrow on the Tennessee River.
‘We’ve Already Survived an Apocalypse’: Indigenous Writers Are Changing Sci-Fi
"Long underrepresented in genre fiction, Native American and First Nations authors are reshaping its otherworldly (but still often Eurocentric) worlds"
From Jadzia Dax to Adira and Gray, all the times Star Trek has challenged societal gender expectations and binaries
"Data's trial in “The Measure Of A Man” sounds very much like current trans and intersex-rights trials in which people are arguing to simply be allowed to exist, with all the dehumanizing language that comes with the so-called “debate.”
"From William Morris to Ursula K. Le Guin and Iain M. Banks, science fiction has provided an outlet for socialist thinkers – offering a break from a bleak political reality and allowing them to imagine a vastly different world."