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Utopia in “Non-Western” Cultures

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The Palgrave Handbook of Utopian and Dystopian Literatures

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Abstract

Over the past 20 years, our collective understanding has shifted regarding which literature can express utopias, dystopias, and various other utopianisms. Where a utopia comes from, which cultural traditions contribute to shaping the worldview it articulates are now considered important elements to be analyzed, as evidenced in this section on global utopian perspectives, ranging from African to Chinese to Latin American utopias. This chapter’s central thesis is that “non-western” utopias draw on different worldviews to enrich their contributions to utopian literature. To explore this premise, I review recent examples of utopian and dystopian texts from Japanese, Francophone Algerian, and Indigenous Australian literature. These narratives represent a range of worldviews that both intersect with and are distinctive from western and postcolonial utopias.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

    Jacqueline Dutton

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  1. Jacqueline Dutton
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Peter Marks

  2. Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and English, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Jennifer A. Wagner-Lawlor

  3. Department of Anglo-American Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal

    Fátima Vieira

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Dutton, J. (2022). Utopia in “Non-Western” Cultures . In: Marks, P., Wagner-Lawlor, J.A., Vieira, F. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Utopian and Dystopian Literatures. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88654-7_43

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