Spectres of Utopia. Theory, Practice, Conventions introduces the latest trends in utopian studies, displaying a wide variety of theoretical perspectives as well as social, political, and cultural practices ranging from intentional communities and globalization to literary and cinematic utopias and dystopias. The contributors, who come from different disciplinary backgrounds, attempt to redefine not only the basic concepts of utopia, dystopia, and anti-utopia but also utopian studies as a whole, applying new conceptual and philosophical paradigms in the wake of the downfall of communism and the crisis of the traditional forms of Western democracy.

Contents: Lyman Tower Sargent: Theorizing Utopia / Utopianism in the Twenty-First Century - Gregory Claeys: The Five Languages of Utopia: Their Respective Advantages and Deficiencies; With a Plea for Prioritizing Social Realism - Tadeusz Slawek: Utopia of Apocalypse: Thinking Which Changes the World - José Eduardo Reis: The Biblical Code of Utopia - Antonis Balasopoulos: Varieties of Lacanian Anti-Utopianism - Jan Rohgalf: Notes on Utopia and Political Myth in the Narration of Alter-Globalization - Malcolm Miles: An Actually-existing Public Sphere? - Federico Cugurullo: Reconsidering Utopia and Dystopia: A Matter of Perception - Yaacov Oved: Anarchist Utopians and the Kibbutz Movement - Timothy Miller: Building an American Utopia: Greensburg Rises from the Rubble - Urszula Terentowicz-Fotyga: Heterotopia Eastern Europe: Warsaw and the Memory of / in the Ruins - Camilla Jalving: Utopia in the Eye of the (Art) Beholder - Teresa Botelho: Leaving One's Safe Houses of Identity: Reimagining Belonging in Utopian Performatives - Ludmila Gruszewska-Blaim: Spectres of Eutopia: (Re-)appropriated Spaces in Filmic Dystopias - Artur Blaim: Theses on Synecdoche and Utopia - Jadwiga Wegrodzka: Utopian Garden Cities in the Children's Fiction of E. Nesbit - Justyna Deszcz-Tryhubczak: Utopianism in Radical Fantasy for Children and Young Adults - David Malcolm: Not As Easy As A.B.C. : Kipling's Male Utopias - Anna Gilarek: Gender Separatism: Utopia Meets Dystopia in Feminist Speculative Fiction - Andrzej Slawomir Kowalczyk: A Liberal Dystopia? Ideology and Religion in Operation 'Veil' by Tomasz Terlikowski - Katarzyna Pisarska: After the End of All Things: Iain Banks's A Song of Stone as a Postapocalyptic Dystopia - Andrew Milner: On the Beach and The Sea and Summer: Two Paradigmatic Australian Dystopias?