Inventions of Nemesis - by Douglas Mao (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Examining utopian writings and other texts that focus on ideal societies, from Greek antiquity to the present, this book offers a fresh take on utopian thought. Mao begins with the observation that utopian ideas often are propelled by an angry conviction that society is badly arranged. In an introduction and three long chapters, he argues that utopia's most basic aim has not been to secure happiness, material welfare, or even order, but instead to establish justice, understood as a condition of right arrangement in which all receive what they ought to receive. Mao's analysis, grounded in literary studies, encompasses a broad range of literary and non-literary works, from canonical utopian writings (Plato's Republic, More's Utopia, Bellamy's Looking Backward) to a broad range of other works, including novels and philosophical writings, from Europe and the United States. It considers utopia in relation to the goal of justice, examining at length the question of utopian indignation, and situates utopian imagining in relation to human migration across national boundaries. In the author's view, a rethinking of key assumptions about utopian ideas is important at a time when public interest in utopia is high, and when questions about what an ideal society could mean "have never been more searching.""--

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

"Inventions of Nemesis engages with an impressive (yet coherent) range of texts in literature, criticism, philosophy, political science, and economics. . . . It is not the least of this book's many virtues that it ends by opening out into new lines of inquiry while demonstrating the urgency that continues to drive utopian thinking."---Stephen Arata, Modern Language Quarterly

"Attentive to both the promises and the pitfalls of utopian thinking, [Mao's] argument is that utopian thought has always focused on achieving justice. . . . He puts utopian fiction writers into revealing dialogue with an equally impressive range of political philosophers."---Duncan Bell, New Statesman

"Mao proffers that utopian thinking is driven not by an ideal of perfection, but rather by indignation at injustices in the world. Mao's thesis that both utopian thinking and the construction of utopias are a response to injustice offers a fruitful alternative starting point for a discussion between law and utopia."---Ruth Houghton, International Journal of Law in Context

"Inventions of Nemesis is undoubtedly an extremely interesting book."---Seamus Flaherty, Marx and Philosophy Review of Books

"A brilliant, erudite, and transformative interpretation of utopia as an exercise in justice. . . . Its arguments will influence scholars working in utopian studies, early modern and modern literatures, global justice theories, and migration studies."---Greg Forter, Modernism/modernity

"Douglas Mao's erudite, keen-eyed, and deeply rewarding volume mounts a subtle polemic against how the discipline understands itself, and it does so by adding to its options for understanding what ethics is."---Bruce Robbins, Novel

"Readers of all stripes will appreciate Mao's consistent attention to context and to the parallels among old favorites and more recent works. This is a valuable addition to the conversation on Utopias."-- "Choice Reviews"

About the Author

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).