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Instructors: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Barbara Veronika Cummings
Event type:
Seminar
Displayed in timetable as:
M5-MA Current Dibate
Hours per week:
2
Language of instruction:
Englisch
Min. | Max. participants:
- | 15
Registration group: M5-MA Current Debates
Priority scheme: Senatsrichtlinie
Requirements / organisational issues:
Being enroled in our MA's study program
Compulsory attendance:
We need to debate... so we need you all as often as possible to have vibrant discussions.
Contents:
Sustainable Utopias // Utopian Sustainabilities
We will focus on spectacular projects that mirror sustainable utopias//utopian sustainabilities, reaching from early ideas such as Arcadia (Greek mythology) or Biosphere 2 (Arizona), to most recent visions like Neom/ The Line (Saudi Arabia). We will look at their references, initial ideas and inspirations, the master planning and the de facto realisation (or their achieved stages) in the according historical embeddedness and in their media or cinematic representation (e.g. Elysium, Wakanda Forever, Shangri-La).
Each participant will choose and present one utopian project (imagined, staged in form of sci-fi productions, digitally mediatised, in process of planning, realised etc.).
Against the background of key readings about the different translations of utopia (in literature and media) as well as sustainability (from philosophical to political and ecological definitions) we will critically engage in debating the heterotopian potential and representation of these projects.The aim is to analyse theoretical flaws, empirical limitations or auspicious anticipations of possible futures to come.
A specific focus will be on power-structures between the involved parties and actors of these imagined, planned, and (partly) realized utopias, e.g. the dual use of technological knowledge production for military and scientific use; the demonstration of power and capital; the question of humanity; the ambigious roles of socialism vs.capitalism as framing ideologies, etc.
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