Radiant Futures: Utopian Art as a Phenomenology of Home-Seeking

This essay examines the imaginative potential of utopian art. Utopian art is more than a representation of a possible future, it calls upon our imaginations to pull us into the act of home-coming itself. Following Heidegger, we depart from the idea that phenomenology is concerned with the imaginatio...

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Main Author: Jordan Huston
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Lodz University Press 2024-11-01
Series:Text Matters
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Online Access:https://czasopisma.uni.lodz.pl/textmatters/article/view/24203
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author Jordan Huston
author_facet Jordan Huston
author_sort Jordan Huston
collection DOAJ
description This essay examines the imaginative potential of utopian art. Utopian art is more than a representation of a possible future, it calls upon our imaginations to pull us into the act of home-coming itself. Following Heidegger, we depart from the idea that phenomenology is concerned with the imagination as an essential part of being-human. This essay leans on insights from Fredric Jameson’s phenomenological exploration of potential futures via the imagination as the means through which we experience utopia in our daily lives. This theorization is grounded in an analysis of Susan Sontag’s novel In America as demonstrating the utopian curves of consciousness as it is experienced phenomenologically in lived time. This novel lends credence to the idea that one purpose (among many) of utopian thinking is to find dreams worth reaching for; and in this reaching we find ourselves coming-home.
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spelling doaj-art-5265dbaa21594742ab56a180ca4982dd2025-08-20T02:50:20ZengLodz University PressText Matters2083-29312084-574X2024-11-011423224710.18778/2083-2931.14.1424691Radiant Futures: Utopian Art as a Phenomenology of Home-SeekingJordan Huston0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6293-1332Loyola University Chicago This essay examines the imaginative potential of utopian art. Utopian art is more than a representation of a possible future, it calls upon our imaginations to pull us into the act of home-coming itself. Following Heidegger, we depart from the idea that phenomenology is concerned with the imagination as an essential part of being-human. This essay leans on insights from Fredric Jameson’s phenomenological exploration of potential futures via the imagination as the means through which we experience utopia in our daily lives. This theorization is grounded in an analysis of Susan Sontag’s novel In America as demonstrating the utopian curves of consciousness as it is experienced phenomenologically in lived time. This novel lends credence to the idea that one purpose (among many) of utopian thinking is to find dreams worth reaching for; and in this reaching we find ourselves coming-home.https://czasopisma.uni.lodz.pl/textmatters/article/view/24203utopiaphenomenologyliteratureimaginationhermeneuticsnarrative
spellingShingle Jordan Huston
Radiant Futures: Utopian Art as a Phenomenology of Home-Seeking
Text Matters
utopia
phenomenology
literature
imagination
hermeneutics
narrative
title Radiant Futures: Utopian Art as a Phenomenology of Home-Seeking
title_full Radiant Futures: Utopian Art as a Phenomenology of Home-Seeking
title_fullStr Radiant Futures: Utopian Art as a Phenomenology of Home-Seeking
title_full_unstemmed Radiant Futures: Utopian Art as a Phenomenology of Home-Seeking
title_short Radiant Futures: Utopian Art as a Phenomenology of Home-Seeking
title_sort radiant futures utopian art as a phenomenology of home seeking
topic utopia
phenomenology
literature
imagination
hermeneutics
narrative
url https://czasopisma.uni.lodz.pl/textmatters/article/view/24203
work_keys_str_mv AT jordanhuston radiantfuturesutopianartasaphenomenologyofhomeseeking