Utopia and Reality: Documentary, Activism and Imagined Worlds (New Dimensions in Science Fiction) - Hardcover

Simon Spiegel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 178683524X ISBN 13: 9781786835246

Publisher: University of Wales Press, 2020

Synopsis

Since publication of Thomas More's Utopia more than five hundred years ago, there has been a steady stream of literary works that depict a better world; positive utopias in film, however, have been scarce. There is a consensus that utopias in the Morean tradition are not suited to fiction film, and research has accordingly focused on dystopias. Starting from the insight that utopias are always a critical reaction to the deficits of the present, Utopia and Reality takes a different approach by looking into the under-researched area of propaganda and documentary films for depictions of better worlds. This volume brings together researchers from two fields that have so far seen little exchange - documentary studies and utopian scholarship - and covers a wide range of films from Soviet avant-garde to propaganda videos for the terror organisation ISIS, from political-activist to ecofeminist and interactive documentaries.

About this title

About the Author

Simon Spiegel is a research associate at the Department of Film Studies of the University of Zurich, and Privatdozent at the University of Bayreuth. Andrea Reiter is a film scholar and documentary filmmaker. She has a doctorate in film studies from the University of Zurich. Marcy Goldberg is a film historian, university lecturer, editor and translator.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Wales Press
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 178683524X
• ISBN 13: 9781786835246
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 304
• Editor: Simon Spiegel, Andrea Reiter, Marcy Goldberg