1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910809293103321

Titolo

On nineteen eighty-four : Orwell and our future / / edited by Abbott Gleason, Jack Goldsmith, and Martha C. Nussbaum

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Princeton, N.J., : Princeton University Press, c2005

ISBN

1-282-66574-X

9786612665745

1-4008-2664-0

Edizione

[Course Book]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (329 p.)

Classificazione

18.05

17.86

Altri autori (Persone)

GleasonAbbott

GoldsmithJack

NussbaumMartha Craven <1947->

Disciplina

823/.912

Soggetti

Science fiction, English - History and criticism

Dystopias in literature

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Based on papers from a conference held in 1999.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Dedicatory Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction. Abbott Gleason And Martha C . Nussbaum -- Part I. Politics and the Literary Imagination -- A Defense of Poesy (The Treatise of Julia) / Scarry, Elaine -- Doublespeak and the Minority of One / Bhabha, Homi K. -- Of Beasts and Men: Orwell on Beastliness / Drabble, Margaret -- Does Literature Work as Social Science? The Case of George Orwell / Epstein, Richard A. -- Part II. TRUTH , OBJECTIVITY, AND PROPAGANDA -- Puritanism and Power Politics during the Cold War: George Orwell and Historical Objectivity / Gleason, Abbott -- Rorty and Orwell on Truth / Conant, James -- From Ingsoc and Newspeak to Amcap, Amerigood, and Marketspeak / Herman, Edward S. -- Part III. POLITICAL COERCION -- Mind Control in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four: Fictional Concepts Become Operational Realities in Jim Jones's Jungle Experiment / Zimbardo, Philip G. -- Whom Do You Trust? What Do You Count On? / Rejali, Darius -- Part IV. TECHNOLOGY AND PRIVACY -- Orwell versus Huxley: Economics, Technology, Privacy, and Satire / Posner, Richard A. -- On the Internet and the Benign Invasions



of Nineteen Eighty-Four / Lessig, Lawrence -- The Self-Preventing Prophecy; or, How a Dose of Nightmare Can Help Tame Tomorrow's Perils / Brin, David -- Part V. SEX AND POLITICS -- Sexual Freedom and Political Freedom / Sunstein, Cass R. -- Sex, Law, Power, and Community / West, Robin -- Nineteen Eighty-Four, Catholicism, and the Meaning of Human Sexuality / Haldane, John -- CONCLUSION -- The Death of Pity: Orwell and American Political Life / Nussbaum, Martha C. -- Contributors -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is among the most widely read books in the world. For more than 50 years, it has been regarded as a morality tale for the possible future of modern society, a future involving nothing less than extinction of humanity itself. Does Nineteen Eighty-Four remain relevant in our new century? The editors of this book assembled a distinguished group of philosophers, literary specialists, political commentators, historians, and lawyers and asked them to take a wide-ranging and uninhibited look at that question. The editors deliberately avoided Orwell scholars in an effort to call forth a fresh and diverse range of responses to the major work of one of the most durable literary figures among twentieth-century English writers. As Nineteen Eighty-Four protagonist Winston Smith has admirers on the right, in the center, and on the left, the contributors similarly represent a wide range of political, literary, and moral viewpoints. The Cold War that has so often been linked to Orwell's novel ended with more of a whimper than a bang, but most of the issues of concern to him remain alive in some form today: censorship, scientific surveillance, power worship, the autonomy of art, the meaning of democracy, relations between men and women, and many others. The contributors bring a variety of insightful and contemporary perspectives to bear on these questions.