Utopia, or there and back again : on worldbuilding strategies in utopian and dystopian narratives

Streszcz. po ang., bibliogr.

The paper aims to analyse worldbuilding strategies in a variety of eutopian (predominantly in literature) and dystopian narratives (in literature, movies and video games), in relation to the world-centred analyse that disseminates in contemporary narrative studies. Consequently, the study derives two possible worldbuilding models from a representative number of utopian texts, that is (1) a typical for early modern utopias and modern imaginary voyages "portal-quest" model (world W1 - gate / journey - world W2) and (2) an emblematic for the most postmodern dystopias model juxtaposing the centre and the peripheries, that deconstructs the first one in postcolonial perspective. Therefore, it becomes possible to compare worldbuilding foundations in so different a narrative like precursory 16th century Thomas More’s Utopia (1516) and 21st century video game Bioshock: Infinite by Irrational Games - which subsequently encourages utopian studies to notice the most contemporary narrative achievements within the genre.