Best of
Utopia

2021

Maya of the In-between


Sita Bennett - 2021
    One is Dystopian—in which humans ignore the repercussions of excessive industrialisation on Nature, and the other Utopian—where humans live in Harmony with Nature and each other.Planet Earth has been depleted, and natural disasters have wiped the land bare in a final attempt to restore balance and survive. All remaining human life is contained in one City. A City of iron and technology where the citizens are safe but they are not free. Until recently, MAYA lived there in hiding, painting visions of a vibrant valley where nature still thrives. She's an inter-dimensional Sëer, a Mystic, a Feeler... and a Rebel.Life imitates art when she sees the man she paints—a young, bright-eyed German officer, BJÖRN—who tells her the world she's been painting is real, and he's determined to find it. In a race against the Control and a quest for truth and freedom, they escape the City and cross dimensions to seek the help of a sophisticated race of beings—keepers of the Earth's sacred mysteries—to save it from total self-destruction.Only to discover they do not believe the Old World is worth saving.COMPARABLE TO the Anastasia Ringing Cedars' series, meets a 1984-like Dystopia.

The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas


Robert Zaretsky - 2021
    In a short life framed by the two world wars, Weil taught philosophy to lycée students and organized union workers, fought alongside anarchists during the Spanish Civil War and labored alongside workers on assembly lines, joined the Free French movement in London and died in despair because she was not sent to France to help the Resistance. Though Weil published little during her life, after her death, thanks largely to the efforts of Albert Camus, hundreds of pages of her manuscripts were published to critical and popular acclaim. While many seekers have been attracted to Weil’s religious thought, Robert Zaretsky gives us a different Weil, exploring her insights into politics and ethics, and showing us a new side of Weil that balances her contradictions—the rigorous rationalist who also had her own brand of Catholic mysticism; the revolutionary with a soft spot for anarchism yet who believed in the hierarchy of labor; and the humanitarian who emphasized human needs and obligations over human rights. Reflecting on the relationship between thought and action in Weil’s life, The Subversive Simone Weil honors the complexity of Weil’s thought and speaks to why it matters and continues to fascinate readers today.

Science Fiction


Sherryl Vint - 2021
    We have phones that speak to us, cars that drive themselves, and connected devices that communicate with each other in languages we don't understand. Depending the news of the day, we inhabit either a technological utopia or Brave New World nightmare. This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge surveys the uses of science fiction. It focuses on what is at the core of all definitions of science fiction: a vision of the world made otherwise and what possibilities might flow from such otherness.

Karna: The King of Anga


Kevin Missal - 2021
    His life shaped by a fate that failed to be just—neglected by his own, stripped of his birthright—he was raised to be lost in an abyss of desires and disappointment.Cursed by his guru, hurt by the only woman he loved, ostracised from society for being the son of a suta. With his only armour—hope—he ventured on an unforgettable journey. Alone.This is Vasu’s tale of survival, of endurance, of abiding courage in the face of all adversities. And eventually, of blossoming into the greatest warrior of all time… KARNA.In an ultimate battle against his archenemy—the insidious, dishonourable and all-powerful, Jarasandha, for a title he knew he deserved.From a sutaputr to a leader of the people, this is a saga of betrayal, lost love, and glory.This is the story of the King of Anga.

Black Utopias: Speculative Life and the Music of Other Worlds


Jayna Brown - 2021
    Musical, literary, and mystic practices become utopian enclaves in which Black people engage in modes of creative worldmaking. Brown explores the lives and work of Black women mystics Sojourner Truth and Rebecca Cox Jackson, musicians Alice Coltrane and Sun Ra, and the work of speculative fiction writers Samuel Delany and Octavia Butler as they decenter and destabilize the human, radically refusing liberal humanist ideas of subjectivity and species. Brown demonstrates that engaging in utopian practices Black subjects imagine and manifest new genres of existence and forms of collectivity. For Brown, utopia consists of those moments in the here and now when those excluded from the category human jump into other onto-epistemological realms. Black people—untethered from the hope of rights, recognition, or redress—celebrate themselves as elements in a cosmic effluvium.

Esperanto and Languages of Internationalism in Revolutionary Russia


Brigid O'Keeffe - 2021
    Ordinary men and women in Russia and all over the world soon transformed Esperanto into a global movement. Esperanto and Languages of Internationalism in Revolutionary Russia traces the history and legacy of this effort: from Esperanto's roots in the social turmoil of the pre-revolutionary Pale of Settlement; to its links to socialist internationalism and Comintern bids for world revolution; and, finally, to the demise of the Soviet Esperanto movement in the increasingly xenophobic Stalinist 1930s. In doing so, this book reveals how Esperanto – and global language politics more broadly – shaped revolutionary and early Soviet Russia.Based on extensive archival materials, Brigid O'Keeffe's book provides the first in-depth exploration of Esperanto at grassroots level and sheds new light on a hitherto overlooked area of Russian history. As such, Esperanto and Languages of Internationalism in Revolutionary Russia will be of immense value to both historians of modern Russia and scholars of internationalism, transnational networks, and sociolinguistics.

The Path to a Livable Future: A New Politics to Fight Climate Change, Racism, and the Next Pandemic


Stan Cox - 2021
    . . some big titles will address emergencies that have outlived Trump. The Path to a Livable Future by Stan Cox, explores the connections among the many crises of the past year and a half."--Dorany Pineda, Los Angeles Times2020 was a year defined by crisis. For decades, scientists have been sounding the alarm about the urgency of addressing climate change, but it took COVID-19 to demonstrate clearly that the future of human life on Earth is interconnected and at risk. While the virus quickly spread across the globe, extreme weather events compounded the suffering and economic catastrophe. In the U.S., public demonstrations of outrage over the murder of George Floyd expanded to include a growing awareness of the pandemic's disproportionate impact on communities of color. In cities around the world, people took to the streets to protest racial inequity in all of its forms.In The Path to a Livable Future, Stan Cox makes plain the connections between the multiple crises facing us today, and provides an inspired vision for how to resolve them. With a deeply informed, clear to-do list, Cox shows us how we can work together to address the climate emergency, white supremacy, and our vulnerability to future pandemics all at once. Our future depends on it."An iconoclast of the best kind, Stan Cox has an all-too-rare commitment to following arguments wherever they lead, however politically dangerous that turns out to be."--Naomi Klein"Cox lays out a refreshingly grounded roadmap for the survival of all life on earth, based on up-to-date science, and anchored in the racial justice imperative."--Leah Penniman, co-founder of Soul Fire Farm, author of Farming While Black: Soul Fire Farm's Practical Guide to Liberation on the Land "Above all, he shows that a healthy, just, sustainable future is possible if we reduce our ecological footprint and share the earth's gifts equitably. For this we need to organize, resist, imagine, and forge another path together."--Vandana Shiva, author of Who Really Feeds the World?: The Failures of Agribusiness and the Promise of Agroecology