Victorian Urban Governance and Modern Cosmopolitan Imaginary: H. G. Wells's a Modern Utopia

維多利亞的都市治理與現代世界主義想像：論威爾斯的《現代烏托邦》

Chi-She Li

《Tamkang Review》 38卷2期 (2008/06) Pp. 109-131

https://doi.org/10.6184/TKR.200806_38(2).0008

摘要

本文以威爾斯的作品《現代烏托邦》爲例，思考英國二十世紀之交現代世界主義想像型塑的歷史。分析書中的未來想像曲折呈現了作者寫作的現代性條件，探討小說如何轉換維多利亞都市治理眾民的政治技巧爲全球規模的未來世界，進而闡述現代世界主義在都市治理的成功經驗與全球化想像兩者互相反饋、彼此加強的過程中奠基成型。
本文首先說明當時西歐古典經濟全球化與英國自由主義式的都市治理的歷史促成威爾斯寫作的情境。接著分析《現代烏托邦》以席勒式的美學觀建構情節，表達前述兩項歷史情境產生的共振共鳴，藉此具體爲現代世界主義想像發聲。尤其值得注意的是，在威爾斯的未來世界中，歷史上的西歐大都會如巴黎與倫敦仍扮演核心角色，後者更是作品後半部著墨的重心。就某種程度而言，威爾斯的烏托邦再現了1851年倫敦博覽會的象徵意義，對大英帝國的權力施展存而不論，並推崇全球貿易帶來商品集中都市的榮景。最後，透過詮釋威爾斯的烏托邦書寫，本文試圖提出批判性的發問，城市的歷史究竟如何左右當代全球化的想像?

關鍵字

現代世界主義想像 ； 威爾斯H. G. Wells ； 現代烏托邦 ； 古典經濟全球化 ； 自由主義式的都市治理 ； 席勒Friedrich Schiller

並列摘要

This paper explains how H. G. Wells's modern cosmopolitan imaginary, as evidenced in A Modern Utopia, translates Victorian politics of demos and urbanization discourse onto the global space at the turn of the twentieth century to bring into being a mutual reinforcement of urban governance and imagined globalism. I first briefly cover the historical contexts of Victorian urbanization to situate the making of H. G. Wells's utopia of a world state in the history at the turn of the century and then analyze the plot structure in terms of Friedrich Schiller's aesthetic theory. The creative attempts of H. G. Wells's utopian writing, linking two major historical contexts of his day, liberal governance and global trading, give expression to a cosmopolitan imaginary of classical globalization. London as an imagined city in the Wellsian utopia substantiates what the Great Exhibition of 1851 stands for, the vision of light that takes imperialism for granted and celebrates in the urban locale concentration of commodities brought forth by global trading. The significance of this historical situating of cosmopolitan imaginary is then to think of the city as a persistently dominant form of contemporary global visions.

並列關鍵字

cosmopolitan imaginary ； H. G. Wells ； A Modern Utopia ； classical globalization ； urban governance ； Friedrich Schiller

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