This study attempts to revitalize utopian literatures and construct new ones by grasping the decline of utopian imagination for 'other' world as a serious cultural crisis of our age. Utopia, which the research team focuses on, aims to relativize and l ...
This study attempts to revitalize utopian literatures and construct new ones by grasping the decline of utopian imagination for 'other' world as a serious cultural crisis of our age. Utopia, which the research team focuses on, aims to relativize and localize the western world that has led the production and research of utopian literature by studying the performances of various world literatures that imagine the utopia as literary form outside the capitalist system from a comparative literary standpoint. In the first year of this research, we looked at the process of utopian imagination being literally shaped around five local literatures such as Western Europe, America, Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa, and East Asia and the manifestations of the pluralistic utopian literature. For the academic seminar scheduled for November of the first year of research, we held a reading session centered on the world utopia literature from 1900 to 1990 as the subject of research, each researcher focuses on the precedents in the fields of theory, politics, society, and culture that are the basis of utopian literature research. And we shared the theoretical foundation of the individual artist / work theory by examining the points where the utopian, the dystopian, the apocalyptic, and the anti utopian are encountered, divided and melted. In addition, we requested the manuscripts from outside researchers as well as the researchers for publishing the utopia-related mass media which would be published at the end of 2016.
In the second year, we divided the "subjects" that frequently appear in local literature across the world into "post apocalyptics: antagonistic to the apocalypse and utopia", "the scars left by the collapse of the revolution and its aspiration to overcome: antagonism between historical trauma and utopia , 'Politics of Friendship and Joy: Restoration of Aboriginal Literature and Communityism', 'Post Humanism and Utopia: Dreaming of Newspapers through Encounters with Virtual Humans' and tried to analyze their literary manifestations comparatively. The utopia theory will be established by reading symptomatically the utopian aspiration contained in the works called disaster, catastrophe, and dystopia. As in 2016, the academic seminars were held regularly on a monthly basis to have the opportunity to share and discuss the results of research by sector and subject. In addition, special lectures by specialists were held in February to contribute to activate interdisciplinary research. In October, the academic conference was held to encourage academic exchanges with future generations who have not participated in this research. The results of the first and second years will contribute to the future renewal of utopia discourse by preparing alternative definitions and new approaches and methodologies. In particular, publishing books from the pointview of the public will promote the social practice of scholarship and restore the popularity of humanities. This study attempted to restore outcomes of the research into our society by combining scholarly achievements obtained through utopian literary studies with the humanities education for the public and activities for the alternative community.