Description

In eleven essays of inquiry from different scholarly traditions, the authors in Microutopias and Everyday Hope examine the potential that resides in utopian thinking on smaller scales.

Basing their explorations in material ranging from music, TV-series, film, and literature to concrete sites, the reflections that result engage in a conversation that steers our attention to the details of aesthetics that are increasingly being drowned out in the polycrisis. However, our attention to detail in less spectacular venues and in the everyday is required if we are to imagine alternative futures differently, and better.

Caught in late capitalism's relentless and dystopian march toward the abyss, any kind of future is predicated on utopian thinking in the present. The essay collection is therefore also an appeal to the crucial importance of the humanities as providing the glue that can withstand our contemporary's fragmentation. Ultimately, this collection highlights the crucial importance of the humanities in order to withstand and even move past the contemporary societal fragmentation being experienced globally.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
1. Microutopias and Everyday Hope
Asbjørn Grønstad (University of Bergen, Norway) and Lene Johannessen (University of Bergen, Norway)
2. Unrest and the Light of Utopia: Anarchism and Archaeology
Henrik Gustafsson (Arctic University of Norway, Norway)
3. "Don't you tempt me with perfection": Music, Death, and Utopia
Zoltan Varga (Western Norway University, Norway)
4. Transnational Figurations of (Micro)utopia in C. N. Adichie's Americanah and K. Waclawiak's How to Get Into the Twin Palms
Tijana Przulj (University of Bergen, Norway)
5. How to Imagine Microutopias
Anders Lysne (University of Bergen, Norway)
6. Micro-Ecotopic Power Lines in Fantasy Literature
Birger Solheim (University of Bergen, Norway)
7. Microutopian Ethics
Asbjørn Grønstad
8. Brilliant Stacks of Cans: The Microutopian Impulse in White Noise
Øyvind Vågnes (University of Bergen, Norway)
9. A Working-Class Return to (Micro-)Utopia? Presentism, Bodies, and Nostalgia in Miranda July's Kajillionaire
Henriette Rørdal (University of Bergen, Norway)
10. The Politics of Everyday Life: Orwell and the Dispossessed
Randi Koppen (University of Bergen, Norway)
11. Everyday Utopias: Compasses of Hope
Lene Johannessen
12. The Possibility of an Island: The White Lotus as Utopian Heterotopia
Janne Stigen Drangsholt (University of Stavanger, Norway)

About the Contributors
Index

Product details

Bloomsbury Academic Test
Published Dec 11 2025
Format Hardback
Edition 1st
Extent 240
ISBN 9781666980516
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Illustrations 4 bw illus
Dimensions 229 x 152 mm
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Anthology Editor

Asbjørn Grønstad

Asbjørn Grønstad is Professor in the Department of…

Anthology Editor

Lene M. Johannessen

Lene Johannessen is Professor of American Literatu…

Contributor

Asbjørn Grønstad

Asbjørn Grønstad is Professor in the Department of…

Contributor

Anders Lysne

Contributor

Tijana Przulj

Contributor

Zoltan Varga

Contributor

Birger Solheim

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