Esse trabalho buscou dar conta de três conceitos gerais dentro da obra de Marge Piercy. Primeiramente apresentamos um pouco sobre a vida da autora, seus alinhamentos e como ela se engaja com os assuntos mais importantes de seu momento histórico. Dois entre seus diversos romances, Woman on the Edge of Time e He, She and It materializam em si uma série de temas e questões, com suas soluções simbólicas e contradições, que buscamos apontar e comentar. O primeiro aspecto que se fez preemente para nossa discussão foi a definição do conceito de Utopia, enfatizando ora suas características formais, ora de conteúdo e, alternativamente, sua função. Ideias como o sonho social e a educação do desejo pautaram nossa análise. Além disso, Fredric Jameson e sua ideia de Utopia enquanto neutralização foi essencial, ou seja, a demonstração de nossa incapacidade de imaginar o futuro. Definimos que a utopia seria para nós um modo de mediação da imaginação, uma ligação entre aquilo que é a uma forma radical de pensar ou agir: a representação da diferença, portanto, uma ferramenta política, um mapeamento das possibilidades e dos limites históricos, importante em um contexto no qual a própria concepção de alternativas está problematizada ou impedida. Além das características gerais da Utopia, se fez importante estabelecer àquelas específicas para as utopias literárias, que são nosso objeto de estudo. Falamos igualmente sobre a Distopia, e suas categorias, além de apresentar uma conceituação de suas vertentes críticas. Nossa tese foi que as obras de Piercy abrem espaço para o pensamento autorreflexivo de alternativas em uma época de crise política e histórica. Elas assim o fizeram na época em que foram escritas e ainda o fazem nos dias de hoje. Guardadas as proporções dos respectivos momentos históricos, as obras representam uma recuperação de aspectos relevantes do passado e um salto para o futuro, na sua mistura de desejos e medos, utopia e distopia. O próximo movimento da pesquisa foi a de explicitar os conceitos de história trazidos pelos romances. Trata-se de uma constante luta contra o apagamento e repressão dos momentos explosivos da História: tanto memória e história são sociais e coletivas quanto o esquecimento e o apagamento da história permeiam a sociedade contemporânea e têm motivações políticas. Finalmente houve uma análise da violência. Fizemos um levantamento de instâncias subjetivas, simbólicas e objetivas dela, analisando episódios do romance que diretamente questionavam as questões da violência. Depois, estudamos as cenas de fechamento dos romances e a forma como a violência passa a ser ressignificada: a defesa se torna um ataque e tal ataque está relacionado a um sacrifício. E o ato individual dos sujeitos é colocado em uma perspectiva coletiva pelas forças do romance, um passo, pequeno, mas prospectivo, na luta por uma alteridade radical. / This thesis aimed at coping with three general concepts within the work of Marge Piercy. Firstly, we introduced some facts about the authors life, her alignments and how she engaged in important issues of her historic moment. Two of her novels Woman on the Edge of Time and He, She and It materialize a series of themes and questions, with their symbolic solutions and contradictions, which we tried to indicate and comment on. The first important aspect of our discussion was the definition of Utopia, its formal characteristics, content or function. Ideas like social dreaming and education of desire were bases for our analyses. In addition to that, Fredric Jameson and his idea of Utopia as neutralization was essential to demonstrating our incapacity to imagine the future. We defined Utopia would be a mediation of imagination, a link between what is and a radical new form of thinking or acting: a representation of difference as well as a political tool, a mapping of possibilities and historical limits, important in a context when even the conception of alternatives are damaged or neutralized. Also, it was important to establish more specific characteristics to literary utopia, which are our object, and we presented Dystopia, its categories and their criticism. Our thesis was that Piercys works enable us to the self-reflexive thinking of alternatives in a time of political and historical crises, both when they were written and now. Regarding their moments of production, they represent a recovery of relevant aspects of the past and a projection into the future, in their mixture of desires, fears, utopia and dystopia. The next step in the research was to explain the conceptions of History within the novels. It showed us the constant fight against the erasing and repression of explosive moments in History: memory and history are social and collective and forgetting and erasing of History are pervasive in our society and have political motivations. There was then an analysis of violence. We selected some examples of subjective, symbolic and objective violence, studying the episodes in the novels that questioned their uses. Finally, we looked to the closing of the novels and the way violence comes to be resignified: defense becomes an attack and such attack is related to a sacrifice. And an individual act of subjects is put into perspective by the collective forces within the novels and are shown to be a small step, yet forward, in the fight towards radical Otherness.

Esse trabalho buscou dar conta de três conceitos gerais dentro da obra de Marge Piercy. Primeiramente apresentamos um pouco sobre a vida da autora, seus alinhamentos e como ela se engaja com os assuntos mais importantes de seu momento histórico. Dois entre seus diversos romances, Woman on the Edge of Time e He, She and It materializam em si uma série de temas e questões, com suas soluções simbólicas e contradições, que buscamos apontar e comentar. O primeiro aspecto que se fez preemente para nossa discussão foi a definição do conceito de Utopia, enfatizando ora suas características formais, ora de conteúdo e, alternativamente, sua função. Ideias como o sonho social e a educação do desejo pautaram nossa análise. Além disso, Fredric Jameson e sua ideia de Utopia enquanto neutralização foi essencial, ou seja, a demonstração de nossa incapacidade de imaginar o futuro. Definimos que a utopia seria para nós um modo de mediação da imaginação, uma ligação entre aquilo que é a uma forma radical de pensar ou agir: a representação da diferença, portanto, uma ferramenta política, um mapeamento das possibilidades e dos limites históricos, importante em um contexto no qual a própria concepção de alternativas está problematizada ou impedida. Além das características gerais da Utopia, se fez importante estabelecer àquelas específicas para as utopias literárias, que são nosso objeto de estudo. Falamos igualmente sobre a Distopia, e suas categorias, além de apresentar uma conceituação de suas vertentes críticas. Nossa tese foi que as obras de Piercy abrem espaço para o pensamento autorreflexivo de alternativas em uma época de crise política e histórica. Elas assim o fizeram na época em que foram escritas e ainda o fazem nos dias de hoje. Guardadas as proporções dos respectivos momentos históricos, as obras representam uma recuperação de aspectos relevantes do passado e um salto para o futuro, na sua mistura de desejos e medos, utopia e distopia. O próximo movimento da pesquisa foi a de explicitar os conceitos de história trazidos pelos romances. Trata-se de uma constante luta contra o apagamento e repressão dos momentos explosivos da História: tanto memória e história são sociais e coletivas quanto o esquecimento e o apagamento da história permeiam a sociedade contemporânea e têm motivações políticas. Finalmente houve uma análise da violência. Fizemos um levantamento de instâncias subjetivas, simbólicas e objetivas dela, analisando episódios do romance que diretamente questionavam as questões da violência. Depois, estudamos as cenas de fechamento dos romances e a forma como a violência passa a ser ressignificada: a defesa se torna um ataque e tal ataque está relacionado a um sacrifício. E o ato individual dos sujeitos é colocado em uma perspectiva coletiva pelas forças do romance, um passo, pequeno, mas prospectivo, na luta por uma alteridade radical. / This thesis aimed at coping with three general concepts within the work of Marge Piercy. Firstly, we introduced some facts about the authors life, her alignments and how she engaged in important issues of her historic moment. Two of her novels Woman on the Edge of Time and He, She and It materialize a series of themes and questions, with their symbolic solutions and contradictions, which we tried to indicate and comment on. The first important aspect of our discussion was the definition of Utopia, its formal characteristics, content or function. Ideas like social dreaming and education of desire were bases for our analyses. In addition to that, Fredric Jameson and his idea of Utopia as neutralization was essential to demonstrating our incapacity to imagine the future. We defined Utopia would be a mediation of imagination, a link between what is and a radical new form of thinking or acting: a representation of difference as well as a political tool, a mapping of possibilities and historical limits, important in a context when even the conception of alternatives are damaged or neutralized. Also, it was important to establish more specific characteristics to literary utopia, which are our object, and we presented Dystopia, its categories and their criticism. Our thesis was that Piercys works enable us to the self-reflexive thinking of alternatives in a time of political and historical crises, both when they were written and now. Regarding their moments of production, they represent a recovery of relevant aspects of the past and a projection into the future, in their mixture of desires, fears, utopia and dystopia. The next step in the research was to explain the conceptions of History within the novels. It showed us the constant fight against the erasing and repression of explosive moments in History: memory and history are social and collective and forgetting and erasing of History are pervasive in our society and have political motivations. There was then an analysis of violence. We selected some examples of subjective, symbolic and objective violence, studying the episodes in the novels that questioned their uses. Finally, we looked to the closing of the novels and the way violence comes to be resignified: defense becomes an attack and such attack is related to a sacrifice. And an individual act of subjects is put into perspective by the collective forces within the novels and are shown to be a small step, yet forward, in the fight towards radical Otherness.

Thesis (doctoral) - Universität, Greifswald, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 243-289).

Thesis (doctoral) - Universität, Greifswald, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 243-289).

Thesis (M.A.)--Wake Forest University. Dept. of Liberal Studies, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 80-84)

No description available.

Between 1820 and 1840, there arose in England a small school of economic thought, intensely anti-capitalistic, known as the Ricardian socialists. Their basic idea was the laborers' right to their whole product. One somewhat obscure member of this group was Piercy Ravenstone who wrote A Few Doubts on the Subjects of Population and Political Economy in 1821 and Thoughts on the Funding System and Its Effects in 1824. In this thesis, I have put forth Ravenstone's system in detail by thoroughly examining both of his works. His basic approach is to demolish the Malthusian population theory, putting in its place a theory which shows that exploitation through rent, taxes and profit is the cause of worker misery. Before examining Ravenstone's work, I have described the historical events which led to early socialist ideology and have given a general overview of Ricardian socialism and its connection with the more classical economics. Profiles of the 2 more well-known members of the school are given and thoughts of Karl Marx on the work of these men are briefly discussed. The conclusion reached is that Ravenstone was not a true socialist but rather was somewhat right-wing. Although he shared many socialist criticisms of capitalist society, he espoused a society of individual workers in both manufacturing and agriculture rather than Owenist establishments or communism. / Master of Arts

Prior to the 1960s and 1970s most studies of time undertaken in the West treated it as an objective phenomenon, devoid of ideological inscriptions. Second Wave feminists challenged this view, arguing that time is not neutral but one of the mechanisms used by patriarchal cultures to subjugate women. The argument was that temporal modes, like everything else in patriarchal reality, had been gendered. Linear time was masculine because it was associated with the male-dominated public domain in which science, commerce and production took place. The natural world, mysticism, the private domain, domesticity and women were relegated to a cyclical temporality that was gendered feminine. In her paper “Women’s Time” Julia Kristeva suggests that three generations of feminism can be identified according to the attitude each takes to time. I use her hypothesis as a framework in order to examine the positions regarding time taken up by various feminist groups during the Second Wave. I identify liberal and socialist feminisms with Kristeva’s first generation because they criticised the fact that women had been left out of linear time and the public domain and demanded that women be reinserted into linear time. I argue that Kristeva’s second generation is represented by cultural feminists of the Second Wave who recognised an alternative women’s time and suggested that women celebrate their connection with it, defying the authority of patrilinear time to dismiss “women’s experiences”. I then propose that the perspective of Kristeva’s third generation may be identified in the work of six authors of feminist speculative fiction who were writing during the Second Wave; this perspective entails a synthesis of the two previous opposing viewpoints. This can be identified in these novels because the female protagonists are first empowered through their access to an alternative (“feminine”) temporal space that subverts the authority of patriarchal culture embedded in linear time and then they move back into patrilinear time, claiming active roles and challenging patriarchal ideology. In this thesis I thus focus on the feminist examination of time during the Second Wave and consider how it was reflected in selected works of feminist speculative fiction written at the time. The authors discussed are Octavia Butler, Marge Piercy, Joanna Russ, Ursula Le Guin, Tanith Lee and Sheri Tepper. / Thesis (DLitt)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / English / unrestricted

This thesis examines selected speculative novels by Margaret Atwood, Ursula K. Le Guin, Doris Lessing and Marge Piercy. It argues that a specifiable ecological ethic can be traced in their work – an ethic which is explored by them through the tensions between utopian and dystopian discourses. The first part of the thesis begins by theorising the concept of an ecological ethic of respect for the Other through current ecological philosophies, such as those developed by Val Plumwood. Thereafter, it contextualises the novels within the broader field of science fiction, and speculative fiction in particular, arguing that the shift from a critical utopian to a critical dystopian style evinces their changing treatment of this ecological ethic within their work. The remainder of the thesis is divided into two parts, each providing close readings of chosen novels in the light of this argument. Part Two provides a reading of Le Guin’s early Hainish novels, The Left Hand of Darkness, The Word for World is Forest and The Dispossessed, followed by an examination of Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time, Lessing’s The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five, and Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. The third, and final, part of the thesis consists of individual chapters analysing the later speculative novels of each author. Piercy’s He, She and It, Le Guin’s The Telling, and Atwood’s Oryx and Crake are all scrutinised, as are Lessing’s two recent ‘Ifrik’ novels. This thesis shows, then, that speculative fiction is able to realise through fiction many of the ideals of ecological thinkers. Furthermore, the increasing dystopianism of these novels reflects the greater urgency with which the problem of Othering needs to be addressed in the light of the present global ecological crisis.

Thesis (Ph.D. (English)) - Rhodes University, 2008