{"id":1652,"date":"2024-02-11T21:25:03","date_gmt":"2024-02-12T02:25:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/researchmatters\/?p=1652"},"modified":"2024-02-11T21:25:03","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T02:25:03","slug":"muise-progressive-dystopia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/researchmatters\/2024\/02\/muise-progressive-dystopia\/","title":{"rendered":"Muise: Progressive Dystopia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;While the #OurLivesMatter photo that opens this chapter issues from the same impulse to preserve Black life, it redirects the rage of young people to the realm of the doable&#8230;\u00a0<em>Progressive Dystopia\u00a0<\/em>maps the tension between these two tenses of victory, and amplifies the lessons Frisco fugitives have for us as we dream an impossible world in which their lives do, in fact, matter&#8221; (21)<\/p>\n<p>Shange&#8217;s introductory chapter strikes a remarkable balance between what\u00a0<em>is\u00a0<\/em>and what\u00a0<em>could be<\/em>, weaving in and out of dyads (Afropessissimism and Afrofuturism, dystopia and utopia, visionary fictions and lived realities). I was particularly struck by Shange&#8217;s encouragement to look to speculative (science) fiction(s) to imagine our own futurity. In part, I was simply surprised at their willingness to talk about &#8220;the inherently utopian nature of the reformist endeavor&#8221; (12). I have always thought that to advocate and work towards a better future,\u00a0one must\u00a0make it sound realistic; to\u00a0think about reform as utopian is, to an extent, to frame abolition as an impossibility, one that places\u00a0truly emancipatory futures only within the imagined realms of speculative fiction. But perhaps Shange is right to call upon Trouillot&#8217;s notion of nonevents as the truly revolutionary sites. Perhaps a truly liberatory futurity is hidden behind a nonevent for us, tied to a utopia that is veiled by our dystopian present&#8230;. excited to talk more about this with y&#8217;all on Tuesday!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;While the #OurLivesMatter photo that opens this chapter issues from the same impulse to preserve Black life, it redirects the rage of young people to the realm of the doable&#8230;\u00a0Progressive Dystopia\u00a0maps the tension between these two tenses of victory, and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/researchmatters\/2024\/02\/muise-progressive-dystopia\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10011,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/researchmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/researchmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/researchmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/researchmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10011"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/researchmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1652"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/researchmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1653,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/researchmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1652\/revisions\/1653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/researchmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/researchmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/my.vanderbilt.edu\/researchmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}