The Hedgehog Review articles from March 2008

The Hedgehog Review archives from March 2008

Imagining the future.(Editorial)
March 22, 2008... Have we lost the ability to imagine the future? Several aspects of contemporary life seem to limit our ability--and desire--to do so. The world seems increasingly beyond our control with the swift advance of technology, world events, and...

Utopia on the map of the world.(Critical essay)
March 22, 2008... The Tradition of Utopia Whatever form the contemporary utopia may take, it is unlikely to depart radically from the types and forms of previous centuries. All writers of utopias are conscious that they work within a tradition of utopia....

Being in Utopia.(Essay)
March 22, 2008... The term "utopia," coined by Thomas More in 1516, is a pun on eutopia/outopia--the good place that is also no place. The lay meaning of "utopia" has come to be a perfect but impossible society, and the term "utopian" to refer to an...

Book review.(Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Archaeologies of the Future is a two-part volume in which Marxist literary critic Fredric Jameson presents a new, 233-page study of Utopia--which he unfailingly capitalizes--alongside twelve previously published essays on the subject....

The Future.(Poem)(Reprint)
March 22, 2008... But the future is different from that destiny seen from afar, magical world, vast sphere brushed by the long arm of desire, brilliant ball the eyes dream, shared dwelling of hope and deception, dark land of illusion and tears...

Democratic hope (1).(Essay)
March 22, 2008... My theme is democratic hope, but I want to begin with some reflections about Utopia--or more precisely what I will call the Utopian or emancipatory impulse. "Utopia," which literally means "no place" in Greek, is the word that Sir Thomas More...

Harlem (2).(Poem)(Brief article)
March 22, 2008... What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore--And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-Like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load....

Managing the future: a review essay on Blindside: how to Anticipate Forcing Events and Wild Cards in Global Politics.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Fukuyama, Francis, ed. Blindside; How to Anticipate Forcing Events and Wild Cards in Global Politics. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2007. Why didn't intelligence experts anticipate the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union...

Local heroes.(Poem)(Brief article)
March 22, 2008... Some days the worst that can happen happens. The sky falls or evil overwhelms or The world as we have come to know it turns Towards its eventual apocalypse Long prefigured in all the holy books. The end-times of old grudge and...

The foreordained future: Apocalyptic thought in the Abrahamic religions.(Essay)
March 22, 2008... Does the ability to imagine the future set homo sapiens apart from other species? Given current research on cognition in primates and other animals, this claim may be yet another example of human hubris. Be that as it may, the most ancient...

Apocalypse during our time?(Essay)
March 22, 2008... Introduction: Apocalyptic and Apocalypticism Beliefs that the world's imminent end is a predictable, known event are common within the three great monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The classical literary...

Book review.(Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... This is a rich and wide-ranging book, with several levels to its argument. The book's most immediate, political target is the Iraq policy of Tony Blair and George W. Bush, which Gray criticizes as a species of utopianism. In the middle range,...

Imagining the future.(BIBLIOGRAPHIC REVIEW)(Recommended readings)
March 22, 2008... Imagining the future is a difficult business, in no small part because whenever we do so the resulting product--be it fiction, political theory, prophecy, or technology--invariably reveals more about the socio-political culture and aesthetic...

Recent relevant releases.(Recommended readings)
March 22, 2008... Baudrillard, Jean. Utopia Deferred: Writings from Utopie (1967-1978). Trans. Stuart Kendall. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), 2006. Brayer, Marie-Ange, Jane Alison, Frederic Migayrou, and Neil Spiller. Future City: Experiment and Utopia in...