Issue Details: First known date: 2022... 2022 A Feminist, Imperialist Utopia: Sir Julius Vogel and Anno Domini 2000
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'Utopias are neither as popular nor as frequent as their dark mirror, dystopias. Projecting from today into the future, using the thought experiment of extrapolation '(if this goes on...)' tends to produce more pessimism than optimism. That is hardly surprising in our perennially anxious times. Nor are vintage utopias palatable to a modern audience: they can contain racism, eugenics, or happily exterminate most of the biosphere (as in Joseph Fraser's 1889 'Melbourne and Mars: My Mysterious Life on Two Planets'). What can seem perfection then can read like tedious hell now. Additionally, utopias are not easy to write well, as polemical perfection lacks conflict, tension, the inherent interest of the devil's party. Some have endured, like Plato's Republic, but it is certainly less read than 'The Handmaid's Tale' or 1984.' (Publication abstract)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

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    y separately published work icon Meanjin Online 2022 23920292 2022 periodical issue 2022
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Meanjin vol. 81 no. 2 June 2022 24904002 2022 periodical issue 'Things move in waves, rhythms of action and response. We thought, not so long ago, that we’d entered a new age of freely flowing facts and ideas, one in which the power of gatekeepers had been diminished, bringing ready access to new informational tools that would empower us all.' (Jonathan Green, Editorial introduction) 2022 pg. 176-182
Last amended 4 Aug 2022 10:23:43
176-182 A Feminist, Imperialist Utopia: Sir Julius Vogel and Anno Domini 2000small AustLit logo Meanjin
https://meanjin.com.au/essays/a-feminist-imperialist-utopia/ A Feminist, Imperialist Utopia: Sir Julius Vogel and Anno Domini 2000small AustLit logo Meanjin Online
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