Utopia/Dystopia
Utopias and (their opposite) dystopias arise from the urge to describe a possible world, a hard-to-come-true probability. Therefore, they either promise good news or foreshadow a warning for the future, depending on the benign or malign nature of the urge. From Plato’s republic and Al-Farabi’s virtuous city to the early modern utopias of Thomas More, Campanella and Francis Bacon; from Christine de Pizan’s city of women philosophers, scholars, and saintesses to Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s feminist society from which war, conflict, and domination are expelled; from the critiques of utopia and “best possible worlds” narratives, which were taken as the first target in the experience of modernity, to the chaotic dystopias and contemporary science fictions, where perfectionism results in autocratic, totalitarian and oppressive regimes; this vast literature not only scrutinizes the temporal, spatial, geographical, cultural, scientific, and technological experiences from the political, economic, religious, moral, legal, and social dimensions of human life, but also addresses problematic concepts such as God, the state, nature, freedom, race, and gender. Devoting its third issue to “Utopia/Dystopia”, Nesir welcomes your original work on the topics listed below, which should be sent to nesir@samsun.edu.tr by August 1, 2022.