Political Uses of Utopia

Contemporary political theorists from Europe and North America open an overdue debate on the ties between politics and utopianism.

S. D. Chrostowska teaches humanities and social and political thought at York University and is the author of the critical-philosophical fragments Matches (2015), the novel Permission (2013), and Literature on Trial: The Emergence of Critical Discourse in Germany, Poland, and Russia, 1700-1800 (2012).

James D. Ingram teaches political theory at McMaster University. He is the author of Radical Cosmopolitics: The Ethics and Politics of Democratic Universalism (Columbia, 2013).

Peter Fitting, University of Toronto:
This is an important book which bridges the "disjuncture between utopia and politics," a gap which has grown as the expanding study of Utopia in North America is increasingly considered "not as a kind of political theory, but, as an artistic and cultural phenomena." This collection of essays from different political currents takes as its organizing principle "that utopianism must have something more, and something more specific, to offer politics and political reflection." A needed contribution, it will prove indispensable for all those who are trying to ground the desire for another world in political theory.

Matthew Beaumont, University College London:
This timely book, a sensitively coordinated collocation of some of the most important voices in contemporary political theory, is a fascinating and at times thrilling intervention in the ongoing but currently pressing debate about the concept of utopia and its uses and abuses. In addition to reimparting a vital sense of intellectual excitement to the term utopia, this collection discovers in it a political and philosophical richness for which today it is all too rarely credited.

Vincent Geoghegan, emeritus professor of political theory, Queen's University, Belfast:
This is a fine addition to the burgeoning literature on utopias and utopianism; wide-ranging in its scope, and with an international range of distinguished contributors. An excellent introduction sets up the agenda.

Antonio Y. Vázquez-Arroyo, Rutgers University-Newark:
This is a remarkable collection of essays on the critical import and significance of utopia and utopianism for politics. The range and depth of the contributions in this carefully curated collection is simply peerless.

Russell Jacoby, author of The End of Utopia, University of California, Los Angeles:
In an era suffering from stale political choices, utopian thinking is showing signs of life. Political Uses of Utopia offers up a rich smorgasbord of recent efforts to make relevant the utopian project. With a generous selection of newly translated pieces by French, German, and Spanish scholars, this collection joins the debate on the future of utopian thought. S. D. Chrostowska and James D. Ingram should be saluted for editing this exemplary volume.

Peter G. Stillman, Vassar College:
Utopian students and scholars will recognize that they must own this book and digest, confront, and come to terms with the various arguments and interpretations of utopia.