Race, Ethnicity, and Utopia

Paper Summary:

This essay deals with the way that race is an issue in three modern utopian or distopian art pieces, David Brin's "Kiln People", the recent movie release of "Lord of the Rings", and the "Star Trek" television series. The paper explains that these three sources have been selected because all three of them are among the most popular of recent works in their respective genres, and each presents a strong utopian vision which, on the surface, is devoid of racism and may even present anti-racist messages, but at its center actually deals with serious issues of race and ethnicity.

From the Paper:

"Even before Moore, though, philosophers such as Plato created imaginary societies that showed the problems and the potential of the world. The earliest Utopias were probably places like Plato's Republic, which while not overtly racist did include stratification into slaves and masters and a "myth" that different people were born of essentially different qualities . Writing about Utopia was resumed seriously during the Renaissance, as interest in ideal government and long-lost cultures was renewed. (Donough) It became extremely prominent as a form of fiction, in addition to being philosophical, during the Victorian age and through the early 1900s. This was when science fiction was first being pioneered by people like Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, (Wagner) and they were among the first to integrate Utopian and Dystopian story-lines into their fiction. For example, Well's The Time Machine, includes a very Dystopian idea of the future in which all humans are split into two competing and incomplete races."

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• Article Review # 132116 : "Race, Ethnicity and Nutrition - An Article Review"

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