Journey of Hope in Dystopian Fiction

Abstract

Utopian dreams and thought have become the symbol of humanity’s hopes and yearnings throughout different times and cultures. Dystopian narratives are not typically associated with hope as they produce nightmarish scenarios by extrapolating current anxieties and fears to the future. However, it is misleading to assert that dystopias lack hope because they depict dark worlds. Many dystopias retain the utopian impulse and hope in their cautionary critique. They aim to engender the desire to change and create a better future in the readers. In this context, there is a strong relation between utopia and dystopia that does not rely on a binary opposition. That is to say, utopia is not the antonym of dystopia or vice versa. Based on this approach, our study analyses the utopian impulse, the generic transformation of utopian and dystopian fiction, and the intertwined relationship between dystopian reality and hope.

Keywords

• Utopia
• dystopia
• critical dystopia
• anti-anti-utopianism
• cynicism
• Capitalocene

Distopik Yazında Umudun Yolculuğu

Abstract

Ütopya temsilleri ve ütopyacı düşünce, tüm çağ ve kültürlerde insanlığın umut ve özlemlerinin sembolü olmuştur. Distopik anlatılar ise içinde bulunulan tarihsel bağlama dair kaygı ve korkuları geleceğe yansıtarak kâbusvari senaryolar ürettiklerinden genellikle umutla ilişkilendirilmezler. Ancak karanlık dünyaları tasvir ediyorlar diye tüm distopyaların umuttan yoksun olduğunu iddia etmek yanıltıcıdır. Çoğu distopya, ütopik dürtüyü ve umudu uyarı niteliği taşıyan eleştirilerinde barındırır ve okurda değişim ve daha iyi bir gelecek yaratma arzusu uyandırmayı amaçlar. Bu bağlamda ütopya ile distopya arasında ikili karşıtlara dayanmayan güçlü bir ilişki vardır. Ütopya distopyanın ya da distopya ütopyanın karşıtı değildir. Çalışmamız bu savdan yola çıkarak ütopya ve distopya ilişkisi bağlamında ütopik dürtüyü, ütopya ve distopya yazınının geçirdiği türsel dönüşümü ve distopik gerçekliğin umutla içkinliğini inceler.

Keywords

• Ütopya
• distopya
• ümitvar distopya
• anti-anti-ütopyacılık
• kinizm
• Kapitalosen

Supporting Institution

Bu çalışmanın Emrah Atasoy (Doktora sonrası misafir araştırmacı) tarafından hazırlanan kısmı, TÜBİTAK BİDEB-2219 Yurt Dışı Doktora Sonrası Araştırma Burs Programı kapsamında üretilmiştir.

References

1. Adorno, Theodor W. [1967]. Prisms. Translated by Samuel and Shierry Weber. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997.
2. Adorno, Theodor W. “Commitment.” In Aesthetics and Politics, 177-195. London: Verso, 1980.
3. Atasoy, Emrah. “Distopik Kurgu ve Ümitvar Distopya Bağlamında Ütopyacılık Geleneği.” Gaziantep Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi 19, no. 3 (2020): 1135-1147. https://doi.org/10.21547/jss.715654.
4. Baccolini, Rafaella and Tom Moylan. “Introduction: Dystopias and Histories.” In Dark Horizons: Science Fiction and the Dystopian Imagination, edited by Baccolini and Moylan, 1-12. London: Routledge, 2003.
5. Baccolini, Raffaella. “The Persistence of Hope in Dystopian Science Fiction.” PMLA 119, no. 3 (May 2004): 518-521. http://www.jstor.com/stable/25486067.
6. Bloch, Ernst [1952]. Umut İlkesi, C. 1. Çeviren Tanıl Bora. İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2009.
7. Cavalcanti, Ildney. “Critical Dystopia.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Utopian and Dystopian Literatures, edited by Peter Marks, Jennifer A. Wagner-Lawlor, and Fátima Vieira, 65-75. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022.
8. Claeys, Gregory. “Dystopia.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Utopian and Dystopian Literatures, edited by Peter Marks, Jennifer A. Wagner-Lawlor, and Fátima Vieira, 53-64. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022.

9. Crutzen, Paul J. and Eugene F. Stoermer. “The Anthropocene.” Global Change Newsletter 41 (May 2000): 17-18. Erişim 17 Temmuz 2022, http://www.igbp.net/download/18.316f18321323470177580001401/1376383088452/NL41.pdf.
10. Fisher, Mark. Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? Winchester: Zero Books, 2009.
11. Foucault, Michel. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977. Edited and translated by Colin Gordon. New York: Pantheon Books, 1980.
12. Haraway, Donna. “Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin.” Environmental Humanities 6 (2015): 159-165. https://doi.org/10.1215/22011919-3615934.
13. Jameson, Fredric. The Cultural Turn: Selected Writings on the Postmodern. New York: Verso, 1998.
14. Jameson, Fredric. Ütopya Denen Arzu. Çeviren Ferit Burak Aydar. İstanbul: Metis Yayınları, 2009.
15. Kayışçı Akkoyun, Burcu. “Bilimkurgu, Ütopya ve Distopya.” Bilimkurguyu Anlamak: Alt Türlere Eleştirel Yaklaşımlar içinde, hazırlayanlar Cenk Tan, Cem Kılıçarslan, Seda Uyanık, 27-49. Ankara: Nobel Bilimsel Eserler, 2021.
16. Milner, Andrew. Locating Science Fiction. Liverpool: Liverpool UP, 2014.
17. Mohr, Dunja. “Critical Hope: Relationalities in 21st-century Speculative Fiction and Art.” In The Postworld In-between Utopia and Dystopia: Intersectional, Feminist, and Non-binary Approaches in 21st Century Speculative Culture, edited by Tomasz Fisiak, and Katarzyna Ostalska, 61-77. London: Routledge, 2021.
18. Moore, Jason W. “The Capitalocene, Part I: on the Nature and Origins of Our Ecological Crisis.” The Journal of Peasant Studies 44, no. 3 (2017): 594-630. DOI: 10.1080/03066150.2016.1235036.
19. Moylan, Tom. “The Locus of Hope: Utopia Versus Ideology.” Science Fiction Studies 9 (July 1982): 159-167. Erişim 17 Temmuz 2021, https://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/27/moylan.html.
20. Moylan, Tom. Becoming Utopian: The Culture and Politics of Radical Transformation. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021.
21. Moylan, Tom. Demand the Impossible: Science Fiction and The Utopian Imagination, edited by Raffaella Baccolini. Bern: Peter Lang, 2014.
22. Moylan, Tom. Scraps of the Untainted Sky: Science Fiction, Utopia, Dystopia. Colorado: Westview Press, 2000.
23. Palardy, Diana Q. The Dystopian Imagination in Contemporary Spanish Literature and Film. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
24. Sargent, Lyman Tower. “The Three Faces of Utopianism Revisited.” Utopian Studies 5, no.1 (1994): 1-37. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20719246.
25. Sargent, Lyman Tower. “US Eutopias in the 1980s and 1990s: Self-fashioning in a World of Multiple Identities.” In Utopianism/Literary Utopias and National Cultural Identities: A Comparative Perspective, edited by Paolo Spinozzi., 221-231. Bologna: COTEPRA University of Bologna: 2001.
26. Sargisson, Lucy. “Dystopias Do Matter.” In Dystopia(n) Matters: on the Page, on Screen, on Stage,” edited by Fátima Vieira, 40-41. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013.
27. Stock, Adam. “Temporal politics: Entangling fictions, futures, and histories in contemporary and historical speculative fiction.” In The Postworld In-between Utopia and Dystopia: Intersectional, Feminist, and Non-binary Approaches in 21st Century Speculative Culture, edited by Tomasz Fisiak, and Katarzyna Ostalska, 109-125. London: Routledge, 2021.
28. Suvin, Darko. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979.
29. Vieira, Patricia. “From Utopia to Dystopia and Back: Utopian Thought in the Age of the Anthropocene.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Utopian and Dystopian Literatures, edited by Peter Marks, Jennifer A. Wagner-Lawlor, and Fátima Vieira, 25-38. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022.
30. Wegner, Phillip E. Invoking Hope: Theory and Utopia in Dark Times. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2020.
31. Zaki, Hoda M. “Utopia, Dystopia, and Ideology in the Science Fiction of Octavia Butler (Utopie, Dystopie et Idéologie Dans La Science-Fiction d’Octavia Butler).” Science Fiction Studies 17, no. 2 (1990): 239-51. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4239994.