Iskanje po katalogu digitalne knjižnice

Opis: As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, readers and scholars turn to previous pandemic writing. Among the accounts of past pandemics, Mary Shelley’s The Last Man (1826) might not be the most familiar, although it stands out, not merely because of its female author and futuristic, dystopian mode. Its real distinction is that it predicts the social and political fallout of a pandemic in ways that echo the global experience of coronavirus reaction over the last few years, specifically, the ideological polarization created by anti-pandemic measures.
Ključne besede: English literature, plague narrative, dystopia
Objavljeno v DKUM: 02.08.2024; Ogledov: 78; Prenosov: 2
Povezava na datoteko

Opis: The thesis explores the relationship between thought experiments and fiction. It argues that thought experiments should be looked at as a sub-category of fiction, as this would enable fiction to be regarded as a source of knowledge and simultaneously preserve the special status of thought experimenting in philosophy. Furthermore, the thesis explores how the notion of thought experiments as a sub-category of fiction can illuminate and resolve certain issues in the classification of the literary genre utopia. Namely, it focuses on how to differentiate between eutopias, anti-utopias, and dystopias. By splitting the category of thought experiments into constructive and destructive thought experiments, it shows that eutopias can be perceived as being built upon constructive thought experiments, and anti-utopias and dystopias as being built upon destructive thought experiments, which suggests that dystopia is a sub-category of anti-utopia. Moreover, the developed theory is tested by showing how Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, Huxley’s Brave New World, and Atwood’s Maddaddam series, examples of anti-utopias and dystopias, are built upon destructive thought experiments, which substantiates our claim extensively.
Ključne besede: literary cognitivism, thought experiments, fiction, utopia, eutopia, dystopia, anti-utopia
Objavljeno v DKUM: 19.10.2017; Ogledov: 1366; Prenosov: 203
Celotno besedilo (1,08 MB)

Opis: Privacy is a matter of ever greater concern in the modern world, and tackling it is increasingly difficult as technology and globalisation threaten it at every step. People have been foreseeing such problems since the last century, and the most imaginative of these are the authors of dystopian fiction. Their works show worlds where the individual is controlled by the State, where the concepts of privacy and sexuality are victims or do not even exist any more. This thesis aims at identifying privacy's role in dystopian literature and observes how sexuality fits into the grander scheme of various societies. With this knowledge, it becomes possible to observe the modern world to see where fiction and reality meet on these topics. In order to thoroughly analyse privacy, it was necessary to separate it into different fields. The structure of the thesis follows this separation throughout. Works included range from classic novels, to articles in journals and media outlets. Each author of a dystopia provides a different vision of the future; thus, a range of surveillance methods are shown, although their targets, whether it be the body or the mind, never differ. Some works give certain targets more attention, others less. Yet, in the end the breach of privacy is an important theme in all the dystopias. A lack of privacy helps find the few dangerous individuals who are sacrificed for the stability of the many, the society, which means the safeguarding of the leaders. Sexuality is used against the people in various ways based on the needs and views of the authority, usually the State. In the modern world similar methods for dealing with privacy and sexuality are used, with some authorities behaving in similar ways. Dystopias can thus function as an effective introduction to an understanding of the modern world.
Ključne besede: privacy, sexuality, dystopia, surveillance, control
Objavljeno v DKUM: 16.10.2015; Ogledov: 1432; Prenosov: 114
Celotno besedilo (398,11 KB)