The Postworld In-Between Utopia and Dystopia: Intersectional, Feminist, and Non-Binary Approaches in 21st-Century Speculative Literature and Culture

Since the publication of Thomas More's Utopia in 1516, the pursuit of “a republic's best state” has been the subject of many a work of philosophy and fiction. A theoretical state of humanity in which religion, the environment, technology, and politics all exist in harmony continues to intrigue scholars and evade real-world actualization. How can a human society create a political system that maximizes the happiness of all its citizens? Is it possible to maintain such a state without it devolving into authoritarianism, and thus dystopia? Can we, ultimately, ever trust the impulse towards utopia? These are just a few of the questions with which the authors of The Postworld In-Between Utopia and Dystopia struggle; their investigations of literature and art are strongly influenced by feminist theory, incorporating analyses of ecology, history, philosophy, and cinema. By the end, the volume proves to possess both an intersectional strategy and global perspective.The anthology is divided into five parts. The three essays of part one analyze several works of fiction in terms of the tension between the anthropocentric and the ecological. The works the authors examine include Larissa Lai's Salt Fish Girl (2002), Jeanette Winterson's The Stone Gods (2007), Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam (2013), Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower (1993), Barbara Kingsolver's Flight Behavior (2012), and Olga Tokarczuk's Opowiadania bizarne [Stories of the bizarre, 2018, which will be discussed in more detail later], to name just a few. Alessandra Boller's essay makes use of Donna Haraway's theory of the cyborg and “Cthulucene” in her investigations of the feminist “ustopian” fiction of Lai, Winterson, and Atwood. In her chapter, Katarzyna Więcowska refers to several stories and novels to question what an “ethics of care” would look like in a post-anthropocentric world. In both, the Anthropocene is to be viewed with suspicion, looking hopefully to a world where the non-human is empowered.In part two, the authors provide intersectional analyses of several works of speculative fiction and art by authors and artists such as Larisa Lai, Paweł Althamer, Jacob Love, and Renee Gladman. In her chapter, Dunja Mohr argues that, despite appearances to the contrary, twenty-first-century dystopian art actually provides reasons to be hopeful for the future. Tristan Verran's contribution to the volume is a more personal and autobiographic essay with his reflections on his own creative, academic, and community work, making use of the insights of queer theory in his analyses of several works of art. Małgorzata Myk's chapter looks to French philosopher Bernard Stiegler's ideas on the “Neganthropocene” in several of Renee Gladman's works of science fiction.The texts in part three integrate political, philosophical, and historical perspectives in their analyses on issues of antisemitism, Islamophobia, and neoliberal consumerism, as well as the ethical difficulties inherent in the creation and use of artificial intelligence. Adam Stock argues, through his reading of several works by authors from the 1930s and 2010s, that “speculative fiction can nurture utopian hope” despite heteronormative ideologies that attempt to limit identity. In the next chapter, Mark Featherstone refers to Freud's Totem and Taboo and Georges Bataille's Theory of Religion to theorize about the sources and consequences of the recent trend in nationalistic “Big Man” worship. In chapter 9, Tomasz Dobrogoszcz reads Ian McEwan's alternative reality novel Machines Like Me as a kind of morality play, critiquing the self-centeredness of humanity with regards to the non-human.The essays of part four rely specifically on feminist readings of several works of contemporary literature. Fiona Tolan argues that most—if not all—feminist dystopian works from the past decade owe much to Margaret Atwood's work, especially her 1985 Handmaid's Tale. Svetlana Stefanova gives a detailed analysis of Nnedi Okorafor's novel The Book of the Phoenix. For Stefanova, the Okarafor's protagonist embodies the empowerment of a female body freed of constraints. Katarzyna Ostalska looks to Sarah Davis-Goff's Last Ones Left Alive and Joss Sheldon's Individutopia to illustrate the practice of “critical utopia,” an attempt to reveal a path out of dystopia. The final chapter of the section by Cristina Paravano discusses several recent young adult dystopian novels, paying particular attention to the ways the women protagonists claim their agency in oppressive hegemonical orders.Finally, part five delves into utopian and dystopian cinema, especially post-apocalyptic pre-tellings of the future. Tomasz Fisiak's analysis of Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin reveals the film's transgressive power, the woman protagonist achieving her independence through the crossing of various kinds of boundaries. In chapter 15, Emrah Atasoy provides an intersectional analysis of the films Children of Men and The Lobster in terms of gender and power relations. Magdalena Cieślak also relies on intersectionality in her study of the zombie retelling of Jane Austen in the film Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. For Cieślak, the film's dystopian re-imagining of Austen's universe provides an important vehicle for addressing vital social issues. The last chapter of the volume by Emily Cox-Palmer-White makes shrewd use of Judith Butler's and Jack Halberstam's theories to illustrate the ways Robert Heinlein's short story “All You Zombies” and its filmic adaptation Predestination demonstrates the ultimate fluidity of identity.Unfortunately, though the collection offers some truly eye-opening analytical insights, there is really only one chapter that would be of specific interest to Polonists: chapter three by Agnieszka Łowczanin, “Environmental Dys/utopian Short Stories in Olga Tokarczuk's Opowiadania Bizarne.” One element that is quite refreshing about this chapter is its focus on just one specific text—admittedly two stories from the same volume—rather than dividing the focus between several texts as most of the other chapters do. Specifically, Łowczanin gives a close, comparative reading of the stories “Wizyta” [The visit] and “Transfugium.” In her analyses of both texts, she makes particular use of Donna Haraway's theories of the cyborg and the “Cthulucene,” notably her ideas on the relations between humans and the environment. In the universe of “The Visit,” Łowczanin sees a “literal materialization of Haraway's cyborgian reality in which the possibility of an amalgamation of the human and the technological becomes a fact” (p. 48). This amalgamation undermines our received notions of identificatory boundaries and hierarchies. However, despite the agency Haraway's cyborg might achieve, in Tokarczuk's story this new, liberated world is one in which “pleasure from contact with others dies out and [. . .] family life means a mere task-oriented exchange with the self” (p. 49). The suggestion, then, seems to be that dystopia is revealed as a state of dehumanized coldness. While Łowczanin refers to Haraway's “Cyborg Manifesto” in her reading of “The Visit,” she moves on to Haraway's more recent Staying with the Trouble, in which she introduces her idea of the “Cthulucene”: an optimistic notion of ways the human and non-human could be linked in cooperative work towards ecological balance. According to Łowczanin, “Transfugium” suggests this cooperation is nearly impossible. According to the story, Tokarczuk's “is a dystopian vision of a world in which the rule of science becomes unbearable to some individuals, [. . .] and a natural environment offers the last vestige of stability and true communal integration, but only for those who part with humanity and venture into a wilderness which has become a separate sphere” (p. 54). For Łowczanin, both stories should be read as harbingers for a future worst of all worlds.Despite the limited interest specific to Polish Studies scholars, The Postworld In-Between Utopia and Dystopia proves to be a very interesting piece of scholarship. Though highly theoretical and oftentimes dense, it provides a needed vocabulary for future literary and artistic study. As technology begins moving us into a posthuman reality, a reality which speculative fiction has been warning us of for over a century, we will need new philosophical and theoretical strategies to aid in our understanding of this utopian/dystopian world-to-come (already here?). The authors of The Postworld provide a bit of that aid.