Utopian and Dystopian Fictions

• Episode 10: Ruth Houghton and Aoife O'Donoghue, Law, Utopianism, and Feminist Utopias

  In this episode, we speak with Ruth Houghton - a Senior Lecturer at Newcastle Law School - and Aoife O'Donoghue - a Professor in Law at Queen's University, Belfast.Our conversation with Ruth and Aoife covers many topics. We talk about the relationship between law, legal theory, and utopianism, we find out more about Ruth and Aoife's collaborative work, we discuss the Barbie movie, and we cover a broad range of feminist utopias and other utopian works!You can find out more about Ruth and Aoife's Utopian Reading Group here: https://bsky.app/profile/ruthhoughton.bsky.social/post/3lkpu4ctzbs2xRead their work on feminist manifestos and global constitutionalism here: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/global-constitutionalism/article/introduction-to-special-issue-feminist-manifestos-and-global-constitutionalism/D0C5ABABA20BCDD0F7378051047BE3B4Find their article (together with C. R. G. Murray) on Gerwig's Barbie here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4714697And find their work on utopias, colonialism and international law here: https://pure.qub.ac.uk/en/publications/utopia-as-no-place-utopias-colonialism-and-international-lawIf you enjoyed this episode, please let us know! You can follow and rate the podcast, leave us a comment, or email us on ⁠⁠⁠[email protected]

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• Episode 9: Nathan Waddell, George Orwell and Nineteen Eighty-Four

  In this episode, we speak with Nathan Waddell, a Professor in Twentieth Century Literature in the English Literature Department at the University of Birmingham.We chat with Nathan about how he first came to researching utopianism and how he came to teach and write about dystopias. We ask him about what interests him about dystopias, which brings us to a discussion of 'elegance'. Our discussion eventually changes focus to George Orwell and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), a text which Nathan is incredibly familiar with. We talk about how it might be considered 'ground zero' for the dystopian tradition, before thinking about the myths which surround Orwell's classic work.You can find out more about Nathan and his work here: https://drnjwaddell.co.uk/ You can find his 'Reading Orwell' podcast here (as well as on all good podcasting platforms): https://drnjwaddell.co.uk/reading-orwellYou can find Nathan's inaugural lecture here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF_cqY0IVuYAnd last, you can find out more about A Bright Cold Day: The Wonder of George Orwell, Nathan's upcoming trade book, here: https://oneworld-publications.com/work/a-bright-cold-day/If you enjoyed this episode, please let us know! You can follow and rate the podcast, leave us a comment, or email us on ⁠⁠[email protected]

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• Episode 8: Diletta De Cristofaro, (Post-)Apocalyptic Fictions

  In this episode, we speak with Diletta De Cristofaro, an Assistant Professor in the Humanities Department at Northumbria University.We chat with Diletta about apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fictions in this interview, paying particular attention to ideas relating to temporality, permacrisis, and key texts such as Emily St John Mandel's Station Eleven (2014). We conclude with a discussion of Diletta's current work, which centres on the cultural politics of the sleep crisis.You can find out more about Diletta and her work here: https://www.dilettadecristofaro.com/ Diletta's monograph The Contemporary Post-Apocalyptic Novel (2020) can be found here: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/contemporary-postapocalyptic-novel-9781350085794/ See 'Station Eleven and Twenty-First-Century-Writing', a special collection published in Open Library of Humanities Journal here: https://olh.openlibhums.org/collections/437/ If you enjoyed this episode, please let us know! You can follow and rate the podcast, leave us a comment, or email us on ⁠[email protected]

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• Episode 7: Season 1 Christmas Special

  Join Matt and Liam for a Christmas special! In this episode, we recap Season 1 of the podcast, talk about some plans for Season 2, and then chat about Christmas in relation to dystopian texts and utopianism.

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• Episode 6: Heather Alberro, Green Utopianism

  In this episode, we speak with Heather Alberro, a Lecturer in Sustainability at the University of Manchester. We chat with Heather about Green Utopianism, a type of utopianism that straddles both the literary and the social-critical, and invites us to ask not only how we can improve the world for humanity, but for non-humans as well. Heather discusses social movements and literary texts alike in this lively interview, as well as her rich publication track record. You can find out more about Heather and her work here: https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/persons/heather-alberro Read Heather's article on H. G. Wells here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328722000544 Read 'Utopian and Dystopian Explorations of Pandemics and Ecological Breakdown', featuring a chapter from Matt, here: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003345770/utopian-dystopian-explorations-pandemics-ecological-breakdown-heather-alberro-emrah-atasoy-nora-castle-rhiannon-firth-conrad-scott And find Heather's latest monograph, 'Terrestrial Ecotopias', here: https://www.peterlang.com/document/1436617 If you enjoyed this episode, please let us know! You can follow and rate the podcast, leave us a comment, or email us on [email protected]

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