Utopia and Political Theology

The words ‘utopia’ and ‘zombie’ are likely to conjure up strong images in the mind of the reader. The first makes one think of perfection, of happiness, of something new and better; the other, of the monstrous, of death and decay. Despite the fact that these images are arguably the most common, one can question their validity: can it be said that utopias are always perfect, and are the undead always monstrous? In this paper, I aim to explore the concepts relating to both utopias and zombies and the possible connections between the two, including a reading of the undead in light of the ultimate utopia: Paradise. In the light of these analyses, I propose a more positive approach to the figure of the zombie, which will be discussed as a counterpoint to the commonly held views of (religious) utopias. Keywords: utopia, dystopia, Christianity, Revelation, Paradise, Second Coming, zombie, post-zombieA man, dressed in an old, torn and dusty suit, is seen in the distance, staggering between the...

The aim of this paper is to show how Atwood’s reformulations of myths contain hidden political messages from ancient and modern history and can be interpreted from Fredric Jameson’s views on ‘symbolic acts,’ discourse and the ideology of form. Several scholars have explored the symbolic relationship between the three major protagonists in The Robber Bride and fragments of the omnipotent image of the Neolithic deity the White Goddess. As the symbolic counterparts of Diana, Venus and Hecate in the novel, Tony, Roz and Charis demonstrate how women’s integrity has been crippled and how the restoration of female principle is just a utopian idea. However, our analysis has revealed that the younger generation of “goddesses” does not bring hope to the female gender in either the present or the future. Augusta, Paula and Erin symbolize oversimplified and parodied versions of the destructive Hecate in an unpromising world and “the not-good place” that resembles a dystopia. Keywords: Margaret Atw...

1.At first the island is just a sign on a yellow board with a drawing of a vessel and the letters saying “Car Ferry,” then it is a grayish silhouette in the blue of the sea, and then, later still, an acquaintance working on the ferry, who just nods briefly in greeting. Jablanac, ferry port, its pleasant lobby, and then, from the upper deck, a giant rock approaching. That is the object of a year-long desire: the moment of stepping off the boat and smelling the rosemary, diesel and sheep droppings, seeing the sharp rocks looking at the Strait of Senj, coarse limestone in sharp opposition to the signs that say: Benvenuti, Welcome, Willkommen!At home, on the terrace, in the shade of the oleander, there’s no wish to eat. Only swimming trunks are put on and then, barefoot, without a towel or sun-tanning lotion, off to the beach.“Why won’t you eat something?” grandma asks.She knows that there’s an exciting world waiting out there, but she knows nothing of the details. All friends went on a bo...

In a period witnessing the increasing popularity of superhero franchises, comic book historian Tim Hanley sheds light on the forgotten history of the world’s most famous female superhero, Wonder Woman. Tim Hanley’s Wonder Woman Unbound: The Curious History of the World’s Most Famous Heroine, as its title suggests, aims to explore the curious path of Wonder Woman: from the creation of the character to her contemporary iconic status. The book is comprised of three sections that follow the eras of American comic books: Golden Age, Silver Age and Bronze Age. Hanley starts off with Wonder Woman’s origin story, associating it primarily with the life and work of her creator, psychologist William Marston. The story begins when an American pilot, Steve Trevor, crashes on the hidden Paradise Island and is found injured by Diana and her fellow Amazons. Paradise Island is the home of mythical Amazons guided by goddesses Aphrodite and Athena. Their world is an only-female utopia situated far away f...

King Lear as a product of evolutionary progressions is logical because the play is framed around two ideas of society and generation in direct confrontation. The sociopolitical ramifications of King Lear are clarified when viewed as an evolutionary progression because societal causality is mirrored in nature. The connection between Lear’s madness and nature’s role in determining societal evolution is demonstrated in the evolutionary notion that “everybody is what he typically is because his progenitors were what they were . . . [i]n the molecular structure of the minute germ of him,” (Maudsley 4) and that and social events are connected with the mechanistic march of nature. When Lear bellows “Crack nature’s molds, all germens spill at once,” (3.2.8) he is requesting the impossible, that the laws of causation be terminated and evolution be put on hold.Keywords: Evolutionary Criticism, reason, philosophy, Shakespeare, King Lear, consilience, evolution, mechanism, madness, nature

Bowie consists of twenty-one short chapters that function as a collection of conceptual fragments. Bowie's artistic work already provides a series of different periods each with its own stock of identities which could easily be comprised into different sections of this book according to, as Critchley calls them, illusions he inhabited, both musically and aesthetically. Although a sense of linearity is present, as the author tends to give an overview of albums and his own fan sensibilities, dividing the book according to Bowie's own artistic eras is avoided. The division into twenty-one chapters is much closer to breaking Bowie's work into conceptual categories that are present throughout his career and are related to questions of identity, sexuality and desire or sometimes even Bowie's own life in the background of it all. Still, as the author notes at the very beginning of the book – it is important not to conflate Bowie as a persona of popular music with his work. It is a popular app...