Ideology and utopia in science fiction (Karl Mannheim, Paul Ricoeur)

This dissertation explores the relationship between ideology and utopia in science fiction, particularly the significance of the literary works that engage contemporary ideologies with the most prominent technological metaphors, namely cyberspace, cyborg and space travel. I approach and advance the discussions of humanity and technology in literature by drawing on Karl Mannheim and Paul Ricoeur for their philosophical analysis of the interaction between ideology and utopia. I argue in my dissertation that the technological utopias depicted in the science fiction under examination reveal the ideological and utopian functions of the three technological metaphors. By incorporating the positive functions of both ideology and utopia, these metaphors thus make the circle of ideology and utopia become a spiral, which is propelled by the factors of restoration and innovation, progression and regression, humanity and technology, and limitation and transcendence.; The concepts of ideology and utopia have been best dissected by Karl Mannheim and Paul Ricoeur in their Ideology and Utopia (1935) and Lectures on Ideology and Utopia (1986) respectively. The aim of my dissertation is to relate the sociological studies of utopia by Mannheim and Ricoeur to the literary studies of science fiction and investigate the question of whether the utopias depicted in science fiction contribute to a kind of spiral progression for humanity and its civilization. In other words, my dissertation validates the notion that technological utopias, by combining the integrative functions of ideology and innovative functions of utopia, can plausibly shape the social development of humanity like a spiral, oscillating between tradition and progress, archaeology and teleology, and the static and the dynamic in societies. Last but not least, by analyzing the prevalent technological metaphors, I effectively consolidate and incorporate the fifth form of utopia, the technological utopian mentality, to the current discussion on the typology of utopia.