Inventions of Nemesis: Utopia, Indignation, and Justice

Douglas Mao

Published by Princeton University Press 2020

Inventions of Nemesis

Utopia, Indignation, and Justice

Douglas Mao

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691211640

Overview
Contents

About this book

A wide-ranging reevaluation of utopian literature and philosophy, from Plato to Chang-Rae Lee

Examining literary and philosophical writing about ideal societies from Greek antiquity to the present, Inventions of Nemesis offers a striking new take on utopia’s fundamental project.

Noting that utopian imagining has often been propelled by an angry conviction that society is badly arranged, Douglas Mao argues that utopia’s essential aim has not been to secure happiness, order, or material goods, but rather to establish a condition of justice in which all have what they ought to have. He also makes the case that hostility to utopias has frequently been associated with a fear that they will transform humanity beyond recognition, doing away with the very subjects who should receive justice in a transformed world. Further, he shows how utopian writing speaks to contemporary debates about immigration, labor, and other global justice issues. Along the way, Inventions of Nemesis connects utopia to the Greek concept of nemesis, or indignation at a wrong ordering of things, and advances fresh readings of dozens of writers and thinkers—from Plato, Thomas More, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edward Bellamy, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and H. G. Wells to John Rawls, Robert Nozick, Fredric Jameson, Ursula Le Guin, Octavia Butler, and Chang-Rae Lee.

Ambitious and timely, Inventions of Nemesis offers a vital reconsideration of what it really means to imagine an ideal society.

Author / Editor information

Douglas Mao is Russ Family Professor in the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of Fateful Beauty: Aesthetic Environments, Juvenile Development, and Literature, 1860–1960 and Solid Objects: Modernism and the Test of Production (both Princeton).

Reviews

"Ambitious and far-reaching, Inventions of Nemesis offers a considerable reorientation of utopian studies. This compelling reinterpretation of utopia as being primarily motivated by the search for justice rather than happiness deserves to be widely debated."—Patrick Parrinder, author of Utopian Literature and Science

“Inventions of Nemesis is a hugely important book. It will be required reading for literary and philosophical scholars and is destined to become an essential point of reference in utopian studies.”—Nathan Waddell, author of Modernist Nowheres

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Utopian Nemesis
Savage Indignation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	21
Nemesis, Nomos, and Justice Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	39
Invention and Counterindignation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	57
Human Destinies Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	73
2. Shaping Utopians
Managerial and Transformative Utopias Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	85
Transformation’s Apogee Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	103
Authenticity contra Conditioning Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	113
Recipients of Justice Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	132
3. Workers in Motion
The Time and Place of the Worker Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	142
Freedom through Administration Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	163
Archipelagic Dreams Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	187
A Global Nomos Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	202
Coda Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	222
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	237
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	277