|
.jpg)
Radical Book Group: "The Dispossessed" @ Wooden Shoe
Thursday August 27th 7:30PM The Dispossessed
by Ursula K. LeGuin
with the Wooden Shoe Science Fiction Reading Group @
Wooden Shoe Books
508 s. 5th Street
Philadelphia PA 19147
215-413-0999
sabot@woodenshoebooks.com
www.woodenshoebooks.com Ursula K. LeGuin's The Dispossessed is perhaps the most popular and celebrated anarchist novel ever written. Winner of both the Hugo and Nebula awards in 1975, it was heralded by the science fiction community as a superb sociological examination of the utopian spirit. It is the story of twin worlds: one, Annares, a libertarian syndicalist utopia, the other Urras, an authoritarian statist hell-planet. It is also the story of a man named Shevek, who travels to Urras when he feels shunned and stifled by his Annaresti comrades. Though the Urrasti tempt Shevek with wealth and fame, he maintains the Odonian convictions he was raised with. LeGuin's Odonian philosophy blends social ecology with a sort of taoism, and the book contains a number of effective critiques of property, power, governments, money, and language. It also provides a convincing model of what a highly technological, fully voluntary economy might look like and how it would work in conjunction with the ecological systems of a planet.
However, the book is not merely eco-anarchist propaganda; LeGuin is deeply worried about how an exceptional individual (like Shevek) would fit (or not fit) into such a world. She subtitled the novel An Ambiguous Utopia because it asks difficult questions about how human beings relate to each other within social systems and whether those systems can ever truly be said to be free. The Wooden Shoe Science Fiction Group will be discussing The Dispossessed on August 27 at 7:30. The discussion will be in round-table format and open to anyone who has read the novel. The Group meets monthly at the Wooden Shoe to discuss science fiction novels with radical political themes.
|
|
© 1999–2008 Philadelphia Independent Media Center |
|
Unless otherwise stated by the author, all content is free for non-commercial reuse, reprint, and rebroadcast, on the net and elsewhere. Opinions are those of the contributors and are not necessarily endorsed by PhillyIMC.
|
Comments
Post new comment