“Utopia is born from very difficult social situations”, says Carlos Berriel, from the Utopia Research Center (U-TOPOS) of the Institute of Language Studies (IEL) at Unicamp. The teacher coordinates the I International Symposium Times of Utopia, which takes place this week, from March 15th to 17th. The meeting, open to the public, is promoted by Unicamp in partnership with the University of Porto (Portugal) and the University of Florence (Italy). The objective is to amplify the debate on utopia using multidisciplinary approaches.
“Utopia is a reflection on society”, reinforces Berriel. According to Danielle Barbosa, who is part of the scientific and executive committees of the International Symposium and is also a researcher at U-TOPOS, there will be 26 exhibitors from different areas, such as Architecture, Psychoanalysis, History, Philosophy, Sociology and others, with guests from the United States, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Brazil. The Opening Conference, on Wednesday (15/03) in the morning, will be given by professor Carlos Berriel, followed by a speech by Krishan Kumar, professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Virginia (USA), a reference in the study of utopia.
Registration, free of charge, can be done by website. where you can also check the full event schedule. For those who do not insist on the certificate, simply go to the “Raízes” Auditorium of the Executive Directorate of Human Rights (DEDH), in the Basic Cycle I building at Unicamp. On Thursday (16/03), there will be a performance by a string quartet at 18:30 pm, at Teatro de Arena da Unicamp.
'Any place'
“In addition to bringing a current topic to the discussion, the idea of the Symposium is to open a dialogue with other institutions and other research groups that are related to the topic or work with it”, says Danielle. The topic has become an important field of research around the world. At the University of Porto, for example, there is a postgraduate course in Utopia.
There is no consensus on when in history the idea of utopia emerged. For some trends, it would be with the work A Republic, by Plato, written in an attempt to create fair legislation for the city (the polis Greek) in the year 405 BC, when Athens was defeated and destroyed in a war against Sparta, generating a deep crisis. “Utopian works are produced at a time when social contradictions are very acute. The author imagines solutions, ways in which society could be just and could reconcile itself, but he cannot imagine any other place. Hence the name 'utopia', which in Greek means 'no place' or 'no place'”, explains the professor.
However, the work that creates the word utopia was written by Thomas Morus, in 1516, a work that has a long title, but which became known simply as Utopia. “Imagining a situation in which everything is resolved is a criticism of a society in which things are very complicated”, analyzes Berriel. For many scholars, utopia has become a literary genre.
U-TOPOS
Created 20 years ago, the U-TOPOS study center works in the field of postgraduate utopia research. Berriel recalls that the center has already held congresses in Florence (2007 and 2015) and in France (2012), in addition to the congresses held at Unicamp (in 2009, with the participation of 35 universities, and in 2017).
“Utopia is also born from desire”, says psychoanalyst Danielle Barbosa. “Utopia manages time. We look for some things in the past thinking about the future”, says the researcher, who will give a presentation, during the seminar, on psychoanalysis. According to Danielle, utopian texts are texts that observe reality.
dystopia
“There is another side to utopia, which is dystopia, which deals with the issue of suppressing the individual in an authoritarian way. This has a lot to do with the last four years that we lived in Brazil. We went through a very complex period in terms of political organization. There was a very systematic dismantling of what was built, such as the organization of institutions. There was a lot of talk about dystopia during this period, it was a very present word”, observes Danielle.
“While utopia imagines itself as a dream, dystopia knows itself as a nightmare”, adds Berriel. Inside utopias, which seem like perfect societies, “the incubus of dystopia breathes”, explains the professor. The sense of incubus here is demon. “You have a demon sleeping there, which is the erasure of individuals, the surveillance of citizens, as in Admirable new world, by Aldous Huxley: the State determining everything.” It is also like this in City of the Sun, book by Tommaso Campanella, written in 1602, which has just been published by Martins Fontes with translation, study and notes by Carlos Berriel.
Dystopias emerge in the 20th century, “when there is no longer utopia, only dystopia”, says the professor. Utopias are linked to reality. Christianity, for example, has a utopian dimension. “Foundation of Western society,” notes Berriel.
The professor cites successful series that are examples of dystopia, such as Black Mirror, The Tale of the Maid e 3%, the latter a national series that will be the subject of one of the lectures. “Fiction is the most highlighted reality,” says Berriel.
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I International Symposium Times of Utopia
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For further information, write to email utopos@iel.unicamp.br.
