The Task of Utopia: A Pragmatist and Feminist Perspective

Description

At their best, both American pragmatism and utopianism are about hope. Both encourage people to think about the future as a guide to understanding the past and forming the present. Just as pragmatism has often been misunderstood as valueless instrumentalism, utopianism has been limited to dreams of a static perfect world. In this book, Erin McKenna argues that utopian vision informed by pragmatism results in a process model of utopia that can help form the future based on critical intelligence. Using John Dewey's works with feminist theory and literature, McKenna develops this pragmatist feminist model of utopia. Epigraph Contents Acknowledgments 1 Introduction: The Problem of the Future 2 The End-State Model of Utopia 3 The Anarchist Model of Utopia 4 Dewey’s Democracy: A Process Model of Utopia 5 Feminism, Pragmatism, Community, and Utopia 6 The Future of Utopia Bibliography Index About the Author