Phillip E. Wegner is Marston–Milbauer Eminent Scholar in English at the University of Florida. He is author of Life between Two Deaths, 1989–2001: U.S. Culture in the Long Nineties; Periodizing Jameson: Dialectics, the University, and the Desire for Narrative; and Shockwaves of Possibility: Essays on Science Fiction, Globalization, and Utopia.

• ContentsIntroduction: Reading in Dark TimesPart I. Reading Theory1. Reading the Event of the New Criticism and the Fate of the Republic2. Toward Nonreading Utopia3. Beyond Ethical Reading; or, Reading Again the James-Wells DebatePart II. Reading Utopia4. John Brown, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Universal History5. Politics, Art, and Utopia in “Babette’s Feast”6. Repetition, Love, and Concrete Utopia in 50 First Dates7. Conditions of Utopia in 2312 and The Best of All Possible WorldsConclusion: Optimism and Pessimism in Cloud AtlasAcknowledgmentsNotesIndex

"This is a book that banishes intellectual lethargy forever, so dazzling are the close readings that flesh out its world-scale philosophy and so forceful is its polemic-a polemic on behalf of knowledge itself as much as theory, commitment, and a responsibly grounded, even necessary, account of hope."-Bruce Robbins, author of The Beneficiary"With originality and humor, Phillip E. Wegner extends Fredric Jameson’s tradition of dialectically reappropriating formalisms, showing how even the most seemingly static structures can be deployed to think diachronically and reinvigorate our abilities to historicize. This fearless book is exactly what we need now."-Sianne Ngai, University of Chicago"Invoking Hope is a major intervention by our leading theorist of utopia-a manifesto for the crisis of the present and the possibility of a better future. Drawing on a mix of Western Marxism and Badiou, Phillip E. Wegner argues for the necessity of a positive hermeneutics and the imagination of possible futures. In the Pandora’s box of the present, Wegner finds the hope that emerges last but promises everything."-Christopher Breu, Illinois State University"An uplifting (and very welcome) message that should appeal to everyone."-Science Fiction Studies