Event box
Let's Talk About Fight Club
- Date:
- Wednesday, April 3, 2019
- Time:
- 11:00am - 12:00pm
- Location:
- Arthur Lakes Library: Boettcher Room
The Body & Modern Utopia presented by Dr. Olivia Burgess April 3rd 11a-12pm in the Library Boettcher Room
In this talk, Dr. Olivia Burgess will argue that Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club (and David Fincher ’s film version) is a significant development in a new kind of utopianism. Unlike traditional utopian narratives like Plato’sRepublic, Fight Club imagines a utopia that is dynamic and adaptive, responding to the immediacy of the present rather than a vacuum of idealism. And unlike Plato’s static vision of philosopher-kings,
Fight Club is an open-ended free-for-all exploration of a world where desire and the appetites displace reason as the foundation for the utopian possibility. The body is often seen as a crutch for the utopian possibility--it breaks, it sags, it ages, and its unruliness requires the rule-driven discipline of utopian planning. Drawing on theories of revolution, Dr. Burgess shows that in the “revolutionary utopianism” of fight club, it is the body itself that paves the way for a utopian possibility.
Featured Image
Presenter
Dr. Olivia Burgess
Online?
Library Contact
Gyasi Evans