Sabry Musa&apos;s <i>Lord of the Spinach Field</i> (1987): A Critique of Post-Colonial Utopianism

Alkhayat, Marwa Essam Eldin Fahmy

doi:10.13169/arabstudquar.43.3.0230

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Volume 43, Issue 3

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Sabry Musa's Lord of the Spinach Field (1987): A Critique of Post-Colonial Utopianism

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Author(s): Marwa Essam Eldin Fahmy Alkhayat

Publication date (Print): 1 July 2021

Journal: Arab Studies Quarterly

Publisher: Pluto Journals

Keywords: Egyptian Science Fiction, Bloch's Ontology of Not-Yet, Subjective Utopia, Post-colonial Utopianism

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Abstract

The present study examines the aesthetic features of Sabry Musa's Lord of the Spinach Field (1987) through Karl-Heinz Bohrer's “Utopia of the Subject” to foreground Homo's quest for a wished-for yet unattainable reality. Post-Colonial Utopianism depicts man's inner turmoil to force an act of willful rethinking to enhance the “anticipatory consciousness” of a better life, a point interrogated within Ernst Bloch's Principle of Hope to propose the concept of the “Not-Yet-Become”: the not realized futuristic reality. Therefore, the interest is in utopia/dystopia historicities as analytical markers of historical inquiry to analyze specific space/time coordinates; post-colonial pitfalls of a technoscience dystopia. As such, the remarkable characteristic of Post-Colonial Utopianism is critique, and “Subjective Utopia” strives to achieve a breach in the teleological ideology of historical structures; thereby, transformation is the central aesthetic strategy of post-colonial critique.

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Journal ID (doi): 10.2307/j50005550

Journal ID (jcode): arabstudquar

Title: Arab Studies Quarterly

Publisher: Pluto Journals

ISSN: 0271-3519

ISSN: 2043-6920

Publication date (Print): 1 July 2021

Volume: 43

Issue: 3 ( doiID: 10.13169/arabstudquar.43.issue-3 )

Pages: 230-248

Article

Publisher ID: arabstudquar.43.3.0230

DOI: 10.13169/arabstudquar.43.3.0230

SO-VID: 4ccfa9a6-2bfc-4dad-b26a-e689e0cbd36b

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ScienceOpen disciplines: Social & Behavioral Sciences

Keywords: Subjective Utopia,Egyptian Science Fiction,Bloch's Ontology of Not-Yet,Post-colonial Utopianism

References

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Aldridge, Alexandra. (1978). The Scientific World-View in Dystopia. UMI Research Press.
Al-Hakim, Tawfiq. ([1958] 2017). Voyage to Tomorrow. Trans. W. M. Hutchins, A. I. Abdulai, and M. B. Lawani. Washington D. C.: Three Continents Press Inc.
Al-Sharuni, Yusuf. (2000). Science Fiction and Contemporary Arabic Literature. Cairo: General Egyptian Book Organization.
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Comments

Comment on this article

[1] Adorno, Theodor W. & Bloch, Ernst. (1988). “Something's Missing: A Discussion between Ernst Bloch and Theodor W. Adorno on the Contradictions of Utopian Longing.” In Utopian Function of Art and Literature: Selected Essays, by Ernst Bloch, translated by Jack Zipes and Frank Mecklenburg. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1-17.

[2] Aldridge, Alexandra. (1978). The Scientific World-View in Dystopia. UMI Research Press.

[3] Al-Hakim, Tawfiq. ([1958] 2017). Voyage to Tomorrow. Trans. W. M. Hutchins, A. I. Abdulai, and M. B. Lawani. Washington D. C.: Three Continents Press Inc.

[4] Al-Sharuni, Yusuf. (2000). Science Fiction and Contemporary Arabic Literature. Cairo: General Egyptian Book Organization.

[5] Amis, Kingsley. (1963). New Maps of Hell: A Survey of Science Fiction. Victor Gollancz.

[6] Ashcroft, Bill. (2007). “Critical Utopias.” Textual Practice, 21(3) 411–431. doi: 10.1080/09502360701529051

[7] Ashcroft, Bill. (2012). “Introduction: Spaces of Utopia.” Spaces of Utopia. An Electronic Journal, 2nd series, No. 1, University of New South Wales. 1-17. <http://ler.letras.up.pt> ISSN 1646-4729.

[8] Ashcroft, Bill. (2017). Utopianism in Post-colonial Literatures. London; New York: Routledge.

[9] Barbaro, Ada. (2015). La fantascienza nella letteratura araba. Rome: Carocci editore, 2013. Review by Caterina Pinto, Al-'Arabiyya, 48, 179-181, Published by: Georgetown University Press, https://www.jstor.org/stable/44654045.

[10] Bhabha, Homi. (1994). The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.

[11] Bloch, Ernst. (1971). On Karl Marx. NY: Herder & Herder.

[12] Bloch, Ernst. (1986). The Principle of Hope. Neville Plaice, Stephan Plaice and Paul Knight (trans.). London: Basil Blackwell.

[13] Bloch, Ernst. (1988). The Utopian Function of Art and Literature. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

[14] Bohrer, Karl-Heinz. (1994[1981]). Plötzlichkeit: Zum Augenblick des ästhetischen Scheins. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. [Suddenness: On the Moment of Aesthetic Appearance]. New York: Columbia University Press. https://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/bohrer/biblio.html

[15] Campbell, Ian. (2015). “Prefiguring Egypt's Arab Spring: Allegory and Allusion in Aḥmad Khālid Tawfīq's Utopia.” Science Fiction Studies, 127(November), 541-556.

[16] Campbell, Ian. (2018). Arabic Science Fiction. London: Palgrave MacMillan.

[17] Clute, John & Nicholls, Peter, eds. (1999). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. London: Orbit.

[18] Csicsery-Ronay, Istvan. (2008). The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction. Middletown, Wesleyan University Press.

[19] Cuddon, J.A. & Habib, M.A.R. (2013). The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. Fifth Edition, London: Penguin.

[20] Glissant, Edouard. (1989). Caribbean Discourse: Selected Essays, trans. with intro. by J. Michael Dash, Charlottesville, University Press of Virginia.

[21] Griffin, Dustin. (1994). A Satire: A Critical Reintroduction. Kentucky: Kentucky University Press.

[22] Gordin, Michael, Tilley, Helen & Prakash, Gyan eds. (2010). Dystopia: Conditions of Historical Possibility. Princeton & Oxford: Princeton University Press.

[23] Gutiérrez, Gustavo. (1988). A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.

[24] Hadomi, Leah. (1991). “From Technological Dystopia to Intopia: Brave New World and Homo Faber.” Utopian Studies, Vol. III, Michael S. Cummings and Nicholas D. Smith [eds.]. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 110–117.

[25] Hammond, Andrew. (2017). Cold War Stories: British Dystopian Fiction, 1945–1990. Brighton: Palgrave.

[26] Handwerk, Gray. (1985). Irony and Ethics in Narrative: From Schlegael to Lacan. New Haven: Yale University Press.

[27] Huxley, Aldous. (1932). Brave New World Revisited. New York: Harper & Brothers.

[28] James, Edward & Mendlesohn, Farah, eds. (2003). The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[29] Jameson, Fredric. (1971). Marxism and Form: Twentieth Century Dialectical Theories of Literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

[30] Jameson, Fredric. (2005). Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions. London and New York: Verso.

[31] Kumar, Krishan. (1987). Utopia and Anti-Utopia in Modern Times. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

[32] Mannheim, Karl. (1966). Essays on Sociology and Social Psychology. London: Routledge.

[33] McHale, Brian. (1987.) Postmodernist Fiction. London, New York: Routledge.

[34] Moylan, Tom. (1982). “The Locus of Hope: Utopia versus Ideology [Le Lieu De L'espoir: Utopie vs Idéologie].” Science Fiction Studies, 9(2), 159–166. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4239477.

[35] Moylan, Tom. (2000). Scraps of the Untainted Sky. Science Fiction, Utopia, Dystopia, Boulder: Perseus.

[36] Mahmoud, Mustufa (1965). Man Below Zero. Cairo: Dar El-Maaraf.

[37] Musa, Sabry. (1987). Lord of The Spinach Field. Cairo: General Egyptian Book Organization.

[38] Paik, Peter. (2010). From Utopia to Apocalypse: Science Fiction and the Politics of Catastrophe. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.

[39] Ricoeur, Paul. (1976). “Ideology and Utopia as Cultural Imagination.” The Philosophic Exchange: 17–28.

[40] Roberts, Adam. (2016). The History of Science Fiction. Palgrave, Macmillan.

[41] Sargent, Lyman. (1994). “The Three Faces of Utopianism Revisited.” Utopia Studies, 5(1), 1–37.

[42] Sargent, Lyman. (2000). Utopia: The Search for The Ideal Society in The Western World. New York: The New York Public Library: Oxford University Press.

[43] Schmeink, Lars. (2016). Biopunk Dystopias: Genetic Engineering, Society and Science Fiction. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1ps33cv.

[44] Seyferth, Peter. (2019[2018]). “A Glimpse of Hope at the End of the Dystopian Century: The Utopian Dimension of Critical Dystopias.” ILCEA [Online], 30 | 2018, Online since 31 January 2018, connection on 19 April 2019. http://journals.openedition.org/ilcea/4454; doi: 10.4000/ilcea.4454.

[45] Snir, Reuven. (2000). “The Emergence of Science Fiction in Arab Literature.” Der Islam, 77(2), 263–285.

[46] Suvin, Darko. (1979). The Metamorphosis of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre. New Haven & London: Yale University Press.

[47] Tawfîk, Ahmed Khaled. (2008). Utopia. Cairo: Merit Publications.

[48] Todorov, Tzvetan. (1975). The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre. Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press.

[49] Turner, Stephen. (1994). The Social Theory of Practices: Tradition, Tacit Knowledge and Presuppositions. London: Polity.

[50] Williams, Patrick. (2010). “Outlines of a Better World: Rerouting Postcolonialism.” Rerouting the Postcolonial: New Directions for the New Millennium, eds. Jane Wilson, Cristina Sandra, Sarah Lawson Welsh. London and NY: Routledge, 86–97.

[51] Zipes, Jack. (1989). “Introduction: Toward a Realization of Anticipatory Illumination.” Ernst Bloch, The Utopian Function of Art and Literature: Selected Essays, trans. Jack Zipes and Frank Mecklenburg. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, xi–vliii.