Zone Theory: Science Fiction and Utopia in the Space of Possible Worlds

Zone Theory develops an approach to the study of utopia that expands its definition and its application in the field of science fiction studies. It rephrases utopia as an unceasing dialectic between totality and novelty which keeps on shaping and discovering new subjectivities and instrumentalities, as it adapts to the exigencies of the present. The author argues that the climate crisis in particular has made the utopian operation especially relevant to the present, in the way it makes possible surprising combinations and permutations of generic forms. The book explores many novels by major SF writers, thinking through them about utopian forms like critical utopia and dystopia, heterotopia, atopia, ecotopia and others. It ultimately ties all of these to the notion of anti-anti-utopia a form of forms that is capacious enough to house an irreducible and permanently open multiplicity of beings, and to radicalize this more-than-human collectivity into a revolutionary project against dystopian and anti-utopian forces.