Introduction: Rethinking Utopia in the Wake of Postmodernism

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Alistair Graeme Fox

Abstract

This introduction to the special issue of Portal on 'Strange Localities: Utopias, Intellectuals, and Identities' identifies the problematical issues in postmodernism and postcolonial theory that are addressed by the essays in the special issue. It then gives an overview of the findings of the essays, and concludes by suggesting that the utopian impulse continues to be expressed in contemporary thought and writing with the aim of bringing utopian hope into an effective relationship with praxis in the here and now.

Article Details

Section
Special Issue Articles (Peer Reviewed)
Author Biography

Alistair Graeme Fox, University of Otago

Alistair Fox has written extensively on humanism, politics, and reform in early modern England, and is widely known for his intellectual biography of Thomas More. His most recent work is a study of the formation of English cultural identity in the 16th Century. His books include Thomas More: History and Providence (Yale, 1982), Utopia: an Elusive Vision (Twayne, 1993), Politics and Literature in the Reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII (Blackwell, 1989), and The English Renaissance: Identity and Representation in Elizabethan England (Blackwell, 1997). Currently, he is writing on the representation of masculinity in New Zealand fiction since the Second World War, with emphasis on the novels of Alan Duff and Witi Ihimaera.