Jameson F. Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions

London, New York: Verso. 2005. 431 p. ISBN: 1-84467-033-3Archaeologies of the Future, Jameson’s most substantial work since Postmodernism, Or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, investigates the development of this form since Thomas More, and interrogates the functions of utopian thinking in a post-Communist age.The relationship between utopia and science fiction is explored through the representations of otherness—alien life and alien worlds—and a study of the works of Philip K. Dick, Ursula LeGuin, William Gibson, Brian Aldiss, Kim Stanley Robinson and more. Jameson’s essential essays, including “The Desire Called Utopia,” conclude with an examination of the opposing positions on utopia and an assessment of its political value today.Archaeologies of the Future is the third volume, after Postmodernism and A Singular Modernity, of Jameson’s project on the Poetics of Social Forms.Part one: The desire called utopiaChaptersIntroduction: Utopia NowVarieties of the UtopianThe Utopian Enclave
Morus: The Generic Window
Utopian Science versus Utopian Ideology
The Great Schism
How to Fulfill a Wish
The Barrier of Time
The Unknowability Thesis
The Alien Body
Utopia and its Antinomies
Synthesis, Irony, Neutralization and the Moment of Truth
Journey into Fear
The Future as DisruptionPart two: as far as thought can reachEssaysFourier; or; Ontology and Utopia
Generic Discontinuities in SF: Brian Aldiss' Starship
World Reduction in Le Guin
Progress versus Utopia, or; Can We Imagine the Future?
Science Fiction as a Spatial Genre: Vonda Mcintyre's The Exile Waiting
The Space of Science Fiction: Narrative in Van Vogt
Longevity as Class Struggle
Philip K. Dick, in Memoriam
After Armageddon: Character Systems in Dr Bloodmoney
History and Salvation in Philip K. Dick
I Fear and Loathing in Globalization
"If I Can Find One Good City, I Will Spare the Man": Realism and Utopia in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy.