{"product_id":"reading-better-states-utopian-method-and-environmental-harm-in-the-global-south-paperback","title":"Reading Better States: Utopian Method and Environmental Harm in the Global South - Paperback","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\u003cp style=\"text-align: right;\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/reportcopyrightinfringement.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"\u003e\u003cb\u003eReport copyright infringement\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eRebecca Oh\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eReading Better States\u003c\/i\u003e traces the persistence of desires for the postcolonial state in an era of environmental harms and climate catastrophe.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eBack Jacket\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eReading Better States \u003c\/i\u003emakes a compelling and important intervention into debates about the state and theorization of 'political forms' within literary and critical theory. The book is a fresh, original, and extremely welcome contribution to large-scale debates about the 'aesthetics of politics' that transcends narrower conversations within literary studies to impact other humanistic fields.\"--\u003cb\u003eElizabeth Anker\u003c\/b\u003e, Cornell University \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eReading Better States\u003c\/i\u003e traces the persistence of desires for the postcolonial state in an era of environmental harms and climate catastrophe. As pollution, toxicity, drought, and flood increasingly threaten peoples and environments across the global South, postcolonial writers and ordinary citizens alike have not ceded their futures to the damaged presents they inhabit. Rather, \u003ci\u003eReading Better States\u003c\/i\u003e shows how they turn to the state as a resource, imagining postcolonial states as powerful actors and calling upon them to intervene in processes like global capitalism and environmental racism, or to provide environmental protections and basic material necessities. These utopic possibilities are concrete rather than grand, limited and situated rather than totalizing. But they are no less utopic for being quotidian. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eReading Better States\u003c\/i\u003e challenges the anti-statism prevalent in postcolonial studies and the environmental humanities, where states are predominantly defined through violence. Seeing postcolonial states beyond their bad surfaces requires a utopian method of reading, a way of seeing the state that reads its negativity against the grain for alternative possibilities. In \u003ci\u003eReading Better States\u003c\/i\u003e the state is Janus-faced. It is a bad actor, but it is also a site of collective hopes and concrete utopian visions. Using a wide-ranging archive of novels, films, court decisions, legislation, poetry, and testimony, \u003ci\u003eReading Better States\u003c\/i\u003e reveals the importance of environmental concrete utopias in the present and reconsiders the postcolonial state for its interventionist possibilities as well as its violence. It does this through a utopian method that, like concrete utopias themselves, attends to negativity while stretching beyond it, seeking out visions of surplus which exceed, even if they cannot escape, the damage and disappointment of the present earth. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eRebecca Oh\u003c\/b\u003e is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eRebecca Oh\u003c\/b\u003e is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 240\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.53 x 9 x 6 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e February 03, 2026\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45431424811110,"sku":"9781531512651","price":63.91,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0599\/7255\/0758\/files\/32n_TCqL4A9781531512651.webp?v=1775774975","url":"https:\/\/infinitylightwa.com\/products\/reading-better-states-utopian-method-and-environmental-harm-in-the-global-south-paperback","provider":"Infinity Light","version":"1.0","type":"link"}