Envisioning American Utopias

Antje Dallmann has received her MA from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in American and British Studies, French and Culture Studies. In her dissertation, she discusses how the trope of paranoia is used to different ends in contemporary urban fiction. Presently she works on a project on the intersection of nineteenth-century literary and medical discourses.Reinhard Isensee graduated in English, American and German Studies. Afterwards he pursued a postgraduate degree in American Studies at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. His dissertation dealt with the topic of naturalist literature in the US, his habilitation in 2002 with American adolescent literature of the twentieth century. He has held numerous research and teaching positions as visiting professor in the USA and at European universities.Philipp Kneis has studied American Studies and History at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. He has been the organizer of numerous transatlantic student-based conferences and symposia. His main research interests are American film and television, American politics, European studies, Native American Studies, Aging, and Memetics. He has recently published The Emancipation of the Soul: Memes of Destiny in American Visual Culture (Lang, 2010).

• Contents: Philipp Kneis: Introduction: Utopia and America – Rasmus Damkjær Christensen/Martin Dalgaard Grøn: Ecotopian Perspectives: Environmental Realities in American Politics and Literature – Renate Ulbrich: «California Dreamin’»: Utopian and Dystopian Images of Space – Antje Dallmann: From Behind Bow Windows: The Metropolis and Mental Life in Nineteenth-Century American Fiction – Philipp Kneis: Finding Atlantis Instead of Utopia: From Plato to Starfleet and Stargate Command – Philipp Kneis: Barbarians at the Gate: (Ig)Noble Savages and Manifest Destiny at the Final Frontier – Katarzyna Sobieraj: The Post 9/11 Dystopia? The Representation of the World in 24 – Sandra Beyer: A Utopia for Conservatives and Real Men: Sexual Politics and Gendered Relations in Star Trek – Thomas Wagenknecht: Two «Eurotopian» Projections of America at the Disjuncture between Chimera and Understanding – Allison Davis-White Eyes: Beyond Canada: James Welch and American Indian Notions of Utopia – Berenike Jung: Trauma Reenactment and Stalling in Batman Begins and Superman Returns – Daniela Simon: New America: – Reinhard Isensee: Epilogue.