Modernity and Utopia in Bruno Latour’s We Have Never Been Modern and Gabriel Josipovici’s What Ever Happened to Modernism

• Authors: Magdalena Sawa

Title variants

PL

Nowoczesność i utopia w Bruno Latoura We Have Never Been Modern i Gabriela Josipovici What Ever Happened to Modernism

• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This article seeks to explore the relation between utopia and modernity on the basis of Thomas More’s Utopia (1516) as well as two seminal contemporary studies: Bruno Latour’s We Have Never Been Modern (1992) and Gabriel Josipovici’s What Ever Happened to Modernism? (2010). The ambiguous nature of the modern prototype of utopia which displays both the eutopian and the dystopian (self-critical) impulse seems reflected in the nature of modernity. With auto-criticism inscribed in the constitution of both utopia and modernity, the leading desires of the modern period—for a greater emancipation and domination—prove to be its greatest burden both in the socio-political sphere as well as in art and literature.

PL

Celem artykułu jest zbadanie relacji pomiędzy utopią a nowoczesnością na podstawie Utopii Thomasa More’a oraz dwóch ważnych współczesnych studiów nad nowoczesnaścią: We Have Never Been Modern (1992) autorstwa Bruno Latoura oraz What Ever Happened to Modernism? (2010) napisanym przez Gabriela Josipovici. Ambiwalentna natura nowoczesnego prototypu utopii, która wykazuje obecność zarówno impulsu (e)utopijnego, jak i dystopijnego (krytycznego), zdaje się znajdować swoje odzwierciedlenie w naturze nowoczesności. Krytyczny aspekt nowoczesności odsłania fakt, że dwa podstawowe dążenia epoki nowoczesnej — do wolności i dominacji — okazują się jej największym obciążeniem zarówno w sferze socjopolitycznej, jak też w literaturze i sztuce.

Keywords

EN

modernity; Modernism; utopia; Utopia; Thomas More; Bruno Latour; Gabriel Josipovici

PL

nowoczesność; modernizm; utopia; Utopia; Thomas More; Bruno Latour; Gabriel Josipovici

• Publisher: Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawła II. Towarzystwo Naukowe KUL
• Journal: Roczniki Humanistyczne
• Year: 2017
• Volume: 65
• Issue: 11: Anglica
• Pages: 161-175

Contributors

author

Magdalena Sawa

• Department of English Literature and Culture, Institute of English Studies, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin

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Identifiers

DOI

10.18290/rh.2017.65.11-11