Critical Theory and Dystopia - (Critical Theory and Contemporary Society) by Patricia McManus (Paperback)

About the Book

Bringing the resources of critical theory to bear on the genre of dystopian fiction, this volume demonstrates both the continuing potential of Theodor Adorno's work on literature, and the meaning of dystopia when considered in the light of Adorno's critique of modernity.

Book Synopsis

Critical theory and dystopia offers a uniquely rich study of dystopian fiction, drawing on the insights of critical theory. Asking what ideological work these dark imaginings perform, the book reconstructs the historical emergence, consolidation and transformation of the genre across the twentieth century and into our own, ranging from Yevgeny Zamyatin's We (1924) and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932), to Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange (1963) and Suzanne Collins's Hunger Games series (2000s and 2010s). In doing so, it reveals the political logics opened up or neutered by the successive moments of this dystopian history.

From the Back Cover

Dystopian fiction is one of the most popular genres of the twenty-first century. This book explores its meaning and significance, asking whether it retains the critical energy of the utopian fiction it seems to have replaced or whether it is simply a compensatory form that extolls the present as preferable to a frightening future.

The book tracks dystopia as a genre of fiction that occupies the spaces of literature and politics simultaneously. Drawing on Theodor Adorno's critique of the situation of writing in the twentieth century, it applies the notion of a 'negative commitment' to situate both the potential and the limits of dystopia. Examining classic dystopias by Aldous Huxley and George Orwell, the book follows the mutation of the genre in works by Margaret Atwood, J. G. Ballard and William Gibson in the 1980s. It concludes by exploring the dystopias of Michel Houellebecq, Lionel Shriver and Gary Shteyngart.

Critical theory and dystopia makes the case for a more rigorously historicised understanding of the dystopias we have now. In addition to reworking the scholarship on dystopian fiction, it also makes a significant contribution towards reorienting approaches to Theodor Adorno, casting his literary-theoretical work as an invaluable resource with which to approach our own present so as to figure out how best to break out of it.

Review Quotes

'McManus offers an excellent study of dystopia both historically and formally. With readings that span from E.M. Forster and George Orwell to Leni Zumas and Michel Houellebecq, the volume is an essential resource for both established and new scholars of the genre.'
Raffaella Baccolini, University of Bologna, Forlì Campus

'Patricia McManus brings a needed focus back to an investigation and assessment of the ideological function of dystopias as they have appeared throughout the 20th century. Her uncompromising critique balanced by her persistent hope for a better world informs her rigorous theoretical intervention and her astute close readings of writers from Orwell to Houellbecq.'
Tom Moylan, Professor Emeritus, Ralahine Centre for Utopian Studies, University of Limerick

'Critical Theory and Dystopia is a remarkable endeavor, bringing together Adorno's literary writings and critical theory, which are often cited but not interpreted in depth with respect to the formal and thematic dynamics of dystopian fiction. ... Considering the increasing number of dystopian novels produced in the twenty-first century, she asks: "Would a weary or defeated genre be simultaneously so productive?" (169). McManus's work is valuable in reminding us that this productivity testifies to the inescapable impingement of the past on the present and on our imagined futures, with an ongoing historicity that contains both colonial and environmental injustices.'
Burcu Kayisci Akkoyun, Utopian Studies

About the Author

Patricia McManus is Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities at the University of Brighton.