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In response to theoretical inquiries into the decline in the production of utopian literature, this dissertation argues that the decline or, rather, the "postmodern" loss of faith in utopian literature and utopian thinking results from the neo-liberal globalization of capitalism and its material and discursive/ideological appropriation of global space. To demonstrate this thesis, the dissertation examines the invariably dystopic imaginative geographies in the fiction of J. G. Ballard. By analyzing the historical-geographical discursive context of Ballard's imaginative geographies, the dissertation attempts to locate and recover those absent spaces that might have served as probable sites of Utopia. / The first part of this dissertation examines Ballard's "Concentration City," "Report on an Unidentified Space Station," "The Enormous Space," "The Overloaded Man," and the novel High-Rise. This section concludes generally that the imaginative geographies inscribed within those texts are closed, insular, homogeneous, pathological and exclusionary social spaces that are antithetical to a Postmodern Utopia whose socio-cultural inclusiveness would be predicated upon a "politics of difference." / The second half of the dissertation examines Ballard's later works, such as Rushing to Paradise (1994), Cocaine Nights (1996), and Super-Cannes (2001). By discursively analyzing the similar yet more ideologically transparent imaginative geographies in these recent works, the dissertation concludes that it is not exclusively the material and ideological conquest of social space by global capital that poses the greatest threat to Ballard's "utopian" socio-spatial imaginary. Rather, it is also the postcolonial threat of the dislocations and mass immigrations of the Indigenous Other precipitated by globalization. It is the emergence of the de-territorialized Other that impels Ballard's imaginative geographies to recoil inwardly into "Privatopias," "white enclaves" and "imperial ghettos" demarcated by neocolonial pathological geographies of exclusion.

This study focuses on three significant issues addressed by utopian literature of the late Victorian period: the class struggle and the resulting debate about capitalism and socialism, the nature and significance of language, and the influence of Darwin's theory of evolution on attitudes toward human existence. The utopian reaction to each of these three issues reflects the increasingly scientific investigation and analysis of specialized fields of knowledge that developed throughout the nineteenth century. Within the context of major scientific advancements in biology, geology, linguistics, and technology, utopian literature of the late-Victorian period, c. 1871-1905, responds primarily to two opposing nineteenth-century attitudes, the complacent optimism of laissez-faire individualism and the resigned pessimism of naturalistic determinism. Literary utopianism of the late nineteenth century is an attempt to resolve the philosophical and epistemological conflict between the impersonal and seemingly unalterable natural laws of science and the indomitable human will. I contend that the utopian novel re-emerges in the last third of the nineteenth century at the intersection of scientific discourse and literary discourse. I further argue that the late Victorian utopia marks a critical transition between the classic utopia the modern utopia. / Department of English

Thesis (M.Arch.) - Carleton University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 77-78). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, 1910. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 128-129).

Habilitationsschrift--Munich. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (PhD)--Macquarie University, Division of Humanities, Department of English, 2003. / Bibliography: p. 250-270.

Habilitationsschrift--Munich. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 200-209).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1995. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [233]-254).