Geographies of Hope: The Desire for Place in Californian Science Fiction | Jenn Martin

Summary: Changing the Climate: Utopia, Dystopia and Catastrophe | Jenn Martin This paper applies a critical geographical perspective to recent utopian theory and practice. With reference to the writing of Kim Stanley Robinson and Ursula K. Le Guin I argue that, while utopia has traditionally been represented as ‘no place’, it is perhaps through the reassertion of local geographies within utopian dreaming that we can come to envision more habitable and working utopias. Just as place has always been a significant resource of the environmental imagination, so it now also functions as a driving force in the revitalisation of the utopian imagination. Jenn Martin is a recent graduate of the University of Sydney’s English Department. Her honours thesis explored the intersection of utopian and environmental discourse in the writing of Kim Stanley Robinson, and the ways in which Robinson’s critical utopian project is inspired by his attachment to the places of Southern California.