This study examines two &lsquo / socialist&rsquo / utopias of the late 19th century: W. Morris&rsquo / s
News from Nowhere and E. Bellamy&rsquo / s Looking Backward. The major concern is to
question the validity of title &lsquo / socialist&rsquo / for these two texts. The reference points for
such an analysis are: modernity, Marxism of the late 19th century and the practice of
discipline. In this context, the intention is to find out ruptures and continuities with
respect to the central ideas of socialism and basic premises of modernity. The study
explorates that there are serious points of rupture in these two texts with respect to
the major premises of modernity, because in Morris&rsquo / s utopia there is a romantic
search for restoring communism of the 14th century, in Bellamy&rsquo / s text there are
typical reactionary modernist suggestions concerning the nature of typical socialist
societies. In that sense, due to the disassociation between socialism and modernity in
these two texts, it is very problematic to classify these utopias as socialist. The study
also questions whether the sources of such disassociation are embedded in Marxism
itself. In response to such question, the study argues that this is the case to a great
extent.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:METU/oai:etd.lib.metu.edu.tr:http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/3/12609789/index.pdf |
| Date | 01 July 2008 |
| Creators | Koc, Yasemin |
| Contributors | Deveci, Cem |
| Publisher | METU |
| Source Sets | Middle East Technical Univ. |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | M.S. Thesis |
| Format | text/pdf |
| Rights | To liberate the content for public access |
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