Approaching sustainotopia
Persistent URL
Author(s)
Ludewig, Julia
Date Issued
June 4, 2025
Abstract
In this article, I analyse a recent German book, Zukunft für alle [Future for All] (2020), as an example of a nascent genre I call ‘sustainotopia’. Following a survey of concepts from genre analysis, econarratology, and communication studies, I outline essential components of this new text type. By looking at its thematic, formal, and rhetorical features, I identify five parent genres: utopia, the manifesto, the casual address, academic communication, and the hypothetical history. These different components serve diverse discursive and affective goals: they aim at engaging readers emotionally – casting the titular future as desirable and personal – and at making this vision rational and realistic. Narrative elements play an important role, not only in the quasi-historical accounts of the future, but also most pronouncedly in the inserted micro-stories. I close with a discussion of the impact that a sustainotopia such as Zukunft für alle might have on readers.
Journal
Journal of Romance Studies
Department
World Languages and Cultures
Citation
Julia Ludewig. Approaching sustainotopia. Journal of Romance Studies 25, 147-171(2025). DOI:10.3828/jrs.2025.9
Publisher
Liverpool University Press
Version of Article
Published version
DOI
10.3828/jrs.2025.9
ISSN
1473-3536
1752-2331
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2025_Ludewig_Approaching.pdf
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