Forget the ’60s, Let’s Talk about the ’90s: Reframing the Utopian Imagination
Benjamin Haber, Daniel Sander
Utopian Studies June 1, 2025 DOI: 10.5325/utopianstudies.36.1.0295 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Cognitive reframing Aesthetics Visual arts Psychoanalysis Literature Art history |
| Citations | 1 |
| Key points | Argues that digital culture and psychedelic culture have both moved away from earlier queer utopian possibilities—digital culture becoming a dystopian space of accountability and commerce, and psychedelic culture narrowing its social aspirations. Proposes a 'queer psychedelic' centered on bodies that resist categorization and on collectivist practices of mutual aid and solidarity. |
Abstract
Something queer is haunting the digital and the psychedelic. Though it is now hard to remember, there was a time when digital culture was abundant with utopian potentialities around identity play, proliferations of difference, and social experimentation. Today’s digital culture, however, strikes many as a resolutely dystopian space that never forgets, that holds you accountable, and that is all business. Psychedelic culture, too, was once more capacious in its hopes for the social, particularly in ways that we recognize as queer. This queer psychedelic consists of corporealities that resist categorization and confound expectation, and collectivist practices of mutual aid and solidarity.