Critical Theory and Dystopia

Patricia McManus is Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities at the University of Brighton.

• Introduction1 Negative commitment at work 2 Orwell and the classic dystopia 3 Dystopia and the past 4 Michel Houellebecq and the end of dystopia? 5 American dystopia Index

'McManus offers an excellent study of dystopia both historically and formally. With readings that span from E.M. Forster and George Orwell to Leni Zumas and Michel Houellebecq, the volume is an essential resource for both established and new scholars of the genre.'Raffaella Baccolini, University of Bologna, Forlì Campus‘Patricia McManus brings a needed focus back to an investigation and assessment of the ideological function of dystopias as they have appeared throughout the 20th century. Her uncompromising critique balanced by her persistent hope for a better world informs her rigorous theoretical intervention and her astute close readings of writers from Orwell to Houellbecq.’Tom Moylan, Professor Emeritus, Ralahine Centre for Utopian Studies, University of Limerick'Critical Theory and Dystopia is a remarkable endeavor, bringing together Adorno’s literary writings and critical theory, which are often cited but not interpreted in depth with respect to the formal and thematic dynamics of dystopian fiction. ... Considering the increasing number of dystopian novels produced in the twenty-first century, she asks: “Would a weary or defeated genre be simultaneously so productive?” (169). McManus’s work is valuable in reminding us that this productivity testifies to the inescapable impingement of the past on the present and on our imagined futures, with an ongoing historicity that contains both colonial and environmental injustices.' Burcu Kayisci Akkoyun, Utopian Studies