Iris Murdoch, Philosopher Meets Novelist aims to gather some of the worlds present experts on Iris Murdoch, in an effort to promote dialogue between philosophy and literature. This is due not only to the nature of Iris Murdochs work itself, but also to our belief that within Humanistic Studies there is a constant need for breaking down disciplinarian barriers and reaching a deeper, fuller awareness of human thinking. Thus, the book brings together scholars from a variety of fields and placesBrazil, (...) England, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, Taiwan, and the United Statesand testifies to the interest that the work of Murdoch continues to inspire. The book is divided into two major sections: Part A, Reading Philosophies in Literature, includes articles focusing on Iris Murdochs philosophical concerns and their general influence in her work; Part B, Reading Literature through Philosophy, is intended as a sort of application ground, a series of case-studies wherein authors depart from novels to retrieve the underlying philosophical thinking. (shrink)

Charles Darwin's curiosity had a remarkable childlike enthusiasm driven by an almost compulsive appetite for a constant process of discovery, which he never satiated despite his many voyages. He would puzzle about the smallest things, from the wonders of barnacles to the different shapes, colours and textures of the beetles which he obsessively collected, from flowers and stems to birds, music and language, and would dedicate years to understanding the potential significance of everything he saw. Darwin's findings and theories relied (...) heavily on that same curiosity, on seeking and answering questions, however long these would take to clarify. His son Francis Darwin often recalls how "he would ask himself 'now what do you want to say' and his answer written down would often disentangle the confusion". In fact, "disentangling confusions" seems to have been the driving force behind Darwin's scientific pursuits, as he was struck with bewilderment when contemplating the luxuriousness of life. It was also the impetus for this book. The true implications of Darwin's legacy remain as controversial to the critics of our time as they were to his contemporaries. Darwin's impact within and beyond the biological sciences is both daunting and exhilarating, and attests to the need for an interdisciplinary approach by remaining a challenge to many scholars in the most diverse fields. The recent revival of his theories has opened a Pandora's box of different theoretical studies that are particularly receptive to exploring new and exciting angles of research. (shrink)

In 2016, the term utopia was appropriated by a variety of discourses in disparate fields to commemorate the human capacity to imagine alternatives to the present and devise strategies for overcoming the most pressing problems. This section of Utopian Studies offers a review of the events held throughout that year in six European countries—Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Ireland—describing the main topics and examining the way they contributed to the promotion of utopian hopes, views, and strategies.The article (...) on utopian events is followed by five texts offering an overview of the books published in 2016 and the first semester of 2017 in those countries, revealing the diversity of approaches... (shrink)

This issue of Utopian Studies, which is meant, like the previous one, to commemorate the five hundredth anniversary of the publication of Thomas More’s Utopia, is divided into three sections.The first section, “Mapping Research in Utopian Studies,” offers an overview of research carried out in the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, and Spain. Although the articles gathered in this section testify to the dynamics of this field of study in these countries, they also evince that research is being carried (...) out in different formats and that in some cases it is still emerging. Such is the case with the Czech Republic, where there are no organized groups focused on research in utopian... (shrink)

It is a common notion that utopias seem to gain particular relevance in a context of crisis. This may explain why, as in May 1968, social movements throughout Europe are resorting to the concept of utopia in order to respond to the current economic crisis. What seems to be at stake, now, is a changeover to a new paradigm. However, for the common citizen, the word utopia is still resonant with the vain hopes of May 1968 or with the failure (...) of the communist projects. This is why the recent publication of a special issue of the French daily evening newspaper Le Monde is so timely. Founded in 1944 and reporting a circulation of over 320,000 per issue, forty thousand of which are sold abroad, Le Monde has .. (shrink)

If I were to review only the books written in Portuguese and published during 2016 and the first semester of 2017 in Portugal, this would no doubt be a very short article. In fact, the National Library of Portugal only displays thirteen entries from a search for utopia in the title, keyword, or subject; and once we exclude fiction, translations, reeditions, and books that, although they use utopia in the title, are not relevant to the field of utopian studies, we (...) are left with just four references.The situation is no doubt surprising given the fact that utopian studies is well established in the Portuguese academy and that a number of events were held across the country to commemorate the five hundredth anniversary... (shrink)

To the contemporary critic, the question of whether Raphael Hythloday really existed is no doubt preposterous. We all know that he never existed and that his name indicates the tension Thomas More wanted to create between a messenger of God, and thus the conveyer of truth, and a nonsensical storyteller. However, the Portuguese historian Luís de Matos published widely, in the 1960s and the 1970s, on the topic. And his monumental work L’Expansion Portugaise dans la Littérature Latine de La Renaissance (...) testifies to a life of academic research partly devoted to trying to prove... (shrink)

Did you know that More’s Utopia was first translated into French in 1550, into Hungarian in 1910, into Mandarin in 1935, into Brazilian Portuguese in 1937, into Polish in 1947, and into Greek as late as 1970? Did you know that there were more translations of Utopia into French at the time of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution than at any other point in French history? That the readers of the second translation into Hungarian never got to know that (...) there was no private property on the island of Utopia? That there is a translation into Mandarin that, although it excludes most of the original paratexts, offers 191 individual illustrations and images? That the first direct translation into... (shrink)

ABSTRACT This essay is motivated by the seeming contradiction that Korean unification is sought after by most Koreans yet speculations about the social and cultural changes it might bring are almost absent. This may be because Korean unification denotes a series of differences contrasted to the present—because it is a potent “master symbol” with one foot in utopian speculation and the other in policy studies. In this essay, I outline some of the complexities, starting with an examination of illustrations of (...) unification in textbooks for the tensions and contradictions they introduce. I then turn to fiction and film, sketching not only what some South Koreans hope will happen after unification with the North but, indeed, the limits of their imagination regarding what the future will hold for South Korea. In the end, I concur with Grinker that representations of unification are “utopian,” but I object to the association of “utopia” with a socially engineered straitjacket. On the contrary, the utopias projected here suggest stepping off a precipice into worlds unknown, futures defined by their radical difference from today. The end of the essay locates these more imaginative dimensions of Korean unification in the “hope” of Ernst Bloch. (shrink)

The year 2016 was unprecedented for the field of utopian studies: to mark five hundred years since the publication of Thomas More's Utopia, a variety of events were organized all over the world, from seminars, workshops, and conferences to fairs, festivals, performances, concerts, cycles of movies, exhibitions, book presentations, and special issues of academic and nonacademic journals. However, although the word utopia was used in the title or description of these events, they were not always directly related to More's masterpiece: (...) more than the text that originated the utopian literary tradition, it was the spirit of utopia, that hope that Ernst Bloch described in all its nuances, and its revolutionary power that... (shrink)

"I prithee, honest friend, lend me thy hand / To help me up; as for my coming down, / Let me alone, I'll look to that myself," says Thomas More to his executioner while mounting the scaffold on July 6, 1535. We are reading from Sir Thomas More, that complicated text that testifies to the collaborative nature of Elizabethan drama. Supposedly written by Anthony Munday and Henry Chettle, and benefiting from the contribution of Thomas Heywood, Thomas Dekker, and William Shakespeare, (...) the play celebrates Thomas More's sense of humor—a facet that is sometimes forgotten but which Marie-Claire Phélippeau, in her new biography of the English humanist, intentionally highlights. Phélippeau... (shrink)