CFP: The Concept of Utopia and Its Function

Submission deadline: February 1, 2023

Details

The ambiguity of utopia as a philosophical concept and project is reflected in the term coined by Thomas More, which can be read as '[e]u-topia' (a good place) or ‘[o]u-topia’ (no place), meaning something that is impossible to achieve. In the post-WWII world, ‘utopia’ took on yet another meaning as a dangerous idea that coincided with totalitarian, genocidal regimes from Nazi Germany to the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and up to the present day. At the philosophical level, this negative sense of utopia was highlighted and developed by Berlin, Arendt, and Popper, amongst others. Today the two negative senses of ‘utopia’ – as useless and dangerous – predominate, while other senses of the term and especially positive ones seem to have been occluded. 

This volume seeks to redress this imbalance by focusing on two main questions:

(1) What alternative philosophical concepts of utopia exist and what are the components that make them up? Relevant components for the concept of utopia might include: the impossibility of utopias, their imaginary aspect, their temporal dimension, their visions of justice, human flourishing, freedom, etc., and their understanding of human nature.

(2) What philosophical function, if any, ought the concept of utopia to serve? Should it be a means of critiquing present-day society, politics, and/or culture? Should it serve as a model for actual change? Or should utopias perhaps be seen as thought experiments that explore the viability of alternatives to the status quo? More broadly, do we as philosophers need a concept of utopia at all, and if so, why exactly?

We welcome chapters that address the above questions from a variety of perspectives, including the history of philosophy, philosophical and literary utopias, and contemporary political philosophy and ethics.

The deadline for submissions is 1 February, 2023. Submissions should not exceed 10,000 words, and please use footnotes rather than endnotes in your submission. The editors will decide which submissions will be submitted to the publisher for blind review, and the contents of the final volume will be determined by the editors in consultation with the publisher and in light of the reviews.

Please submit your manuscript to [email protected]

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