Utopia and Reality (eBook)

Documentary, Activism and Imagined Worlds

Marcy Goldberg, Andrea Reiter, Simon Spiegel (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: PDF

2020
304 Seiten
University of Wales Press (Verlag)
978-1-78683-525-3 (ISBN)

Infos

Since publication of Thomas More's Utopia more than five hundred years ago, there has been a steady stream of literary works that depict a better world; positive utopias in film, however, have been scarce. There is a consensus that utopias in the Morean tradition are not suited to fiction film, and research has accordingly focused on dystopias. Starting from the insight that utopias are always a critical reaction to the deficits of the present, Utopia and Reality takes a different approach by looking into the under-researched area of propaganda and documentary films for depictions of better worlds. This volume brings together researchers from two fields that have so far seen little exchange - documentary studies and utopian scholarship - and covers a wide range of films from Soviet avant-garde to propaganda videos for the terror organisation ISIS, from political-activist to ecofeminist and interactive documentaries.

Inhalt

Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Contributors
Acknowledgments

Andrea Reiter and Simon Spiegel
Introduction: Utopian Realities

Lyman Tower Sargent and Simon Spiegel
Reality and Utopia: A Conversation with Lyman Tower Sargent

Part 1: Tracing Utopia

Susanna Layh
Utopia Revisited: Reading Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera in the Light of the Utopian Tradition

Peter Seyferth
Neither Fact Nor Fiction: Made in Secret as a Utopian Education in Desire

Simon Spiegel
The Utopia of the Caliphate: Reading ISIS Propaganda Videos as Utopian Texts

Part 2: Alternative Documentary Politics

Matthew Holtmeier
Living and Dying with Water: Indigenous Histories and Critical Bioregionalism in The Pearl Button

Andrea Reiter
Prospectivity in Political Documentaries

Chelsea Wessels
Practicing Hope: Ecofeminism, Documentary and Community Engagement

Part 3: New Forms of Documentary Activism

Daniel Schwartz, Klearjos Eduardo Papanicolaou, Alfredo Brillembourg, Hubert Klumpner
Trans-Utopia: Documenting Real and Imagined Cities


Dale Hudson
Post-Utopian Interventions by Students: Interactive Documentary and Micro-Revolutions

Jane M. Gaines
Documentary Dreams of Activism and the Arab Spring

List of Illustrations

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 15.2.2020
• Reihe/Serie: New Dimensions in Science Fiction
• Reihe/Serie: New Dimensions in Science Fiction
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Essays / Feuilleton
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Science Fiction
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Film / TV
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
• Schlagworte: activism • Documentary • imagined • Reality • Utopia • Worlds
• ISBN-10: 1-78683-525-8 / 1786835258
• ISBN-13: 978-1-78683-525-3 / 9781786835253