From Utopian Studies, John Hickman (Berry): When Science Fiction Writers Used Fictional Drugs: Rise and Fall of the Twentieth-century Drug Dystopia; Sing-chen Lydia Chiang (BC): Visions of Happiness: Daoist Utopias and Grotto Paradises in Early and Medieval Chinese Tales; Jose Luis Ramos-Gorostiza (Complutense): Socio-economic Utopianism in Spain at the End of the Nineteenth Century: La Nueva Utopia by Ricardo Mella; Janet Sarbanes (CalArts): The Shaker "Gift" Economy: Charisma, Aesthetic Practice and Utopian Communalism; Daniel P. Jaeckle (Concordia): Embodied Anarchy in Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed; and a review of Rhetorics of Fantasy by Farah Mendlesohn. From The New Yorker, what’s behind the boom in dystopian fiction for young readers? Torsten Krol's The Dolphin People is a great utopian parable for our savage times. From Bookforum, a special section on Utopia & Dystopia: Paul La Farge on how perfect worlds are games to be played by following the rules to the letter; and is it time for dystopian novelists to end the reign of the free-market idealists? Keith Gessen investigates. From New American City, an article on Frank Lloyd Wright’s Utopian Dystopia. From Changesurfer Radio, an interview with Russell Jacoby on the decline of both public intellectualism and utopianism, and the prospects for a return of both. Leland B. Yeager on Uchronia, or Alternative History: The history that didn't happen can be just as interesting as the history that did. A review of Technology and Utopia by Howard P. Segal. From e-flux, Hans Ulrich Obrist on Manifestos for the Future. From Fast Company, Jamais Cascio on Futures Thinking: The Basics, Asking the Question, Scanning the World, Mapping the Possibilities (part 2), and Writing Scenarios.
