The New Utopian Politics of Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed

The Dispossessed has been described by political thinker Andre Gorz as 'The most striking description I know of the seductions—and snares—of self-managed communist or, in other words, anarchist society.' To date, however, the radical social, cultural, and political ramifications of Le Guin's multiple award-winning novel remain woefully under explored. Editors Laurence Davis and Peter Stillman right this state of affairs in the first ever collection of original essays devoted to Le Guin's novel. Among the topics covered in this wide-ranging, international and interdisciplinary collection are the anarchist, ecological, post-consumerist, temporal, revolutionary, and open-ended utopian politics of The Dispossessed. The book concludes with an essay by Le Guin written specially for this volume, in which she reassesses the novel in light of the development of her own thinking over the past 30 years.

The Dispossessed has been described by political thinker Andre Gorz as 'The most striking description I know of the seductions—and snares—of self-managed communist or, in other words, anarchist society.' To date, however, the radical social, cultural, and political ramifications of Le Guin's multiple award-winning novel remain woefully under explored. Editors Laurence Davis and Peter Stillman right this state of affairs in the first ever collection of original essays devoted to Le Guin's novel. Among the topics covered in this wide-ranging, international and interdisciplinary collection are the anarchist, ecological, post-consumerist, temporal, revolutionary, and open-ended utopian politics of The Dispossessed. The book concludes with an essay by Le Guin written specially for this volume, in which she reassesses the novel in light of the development of her own thinking over the past 30 years.

Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 Open-ended Utopian Politics
Chapter 3 The Dynamic and Revolutionary Utopia of Ursula K. Le Guin
Chapter 4 Worlds Apart: Ursula K. Le Guin and the Possibility of Method
Chapter 5 Post-Consumerist Politics
Chapter 6 The Dispossessed as Ecological Political Theory
Chapter 7 Ursula K. Le Guin, Herbert Marcuse, and the Fate of Utopia in the Postmodern
Chapter 8 The Alien Comes Home: Getting Past the Twin Planets of Possession and Austerity in Le Guin's The Dispossessed
Chapter 9 Anarchist Politics
Chapter 10 Individual and Community in Le Guin's The Dispossessed
Chapter 11 The Need for Walls: Privacy, Community, and Freedom in The Dispossessed
Chapter 12 Breaching Invisible Walls: Individual Anarchy in The Dispossessed
Chapter 13 Temporal Politics
Chapter 14 Time and the Measure of the Political Animal
Chapter 15 Fulfillment as a Function of Time, or the Ambiguous Process of Utopia
Chapter 16 Science and Politics in The Dispossessed: Le Guin and the Science Wars
Chapter 17 Revolutionary Politics
Chapter 18 The Gap in the Wall: Partnership, Physics, and Politics in The Dispossessed
Chapter 19 From Ambiguity to Self-Reflexivity: Revolutionizing Fantasy Space
Chapter 20 Future Conditional or Future Perfect? The Dispossessed and Permanent Revolution
Chapter 21 Open-ended Utopian Politics
Chapter 22 Ambiguous Choices: Skepticism as a Grounding for Utopia
Chapter 23 Empty Hands: Communication, Pluralism and Community in Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed
Chapter 24 A Response, by Ansible, from Tau Ceti
Chapter 25 Further Reading