| Edition |
First hardcover edition. |
| Description |
333 pages ; 24 cm |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 325-333). |
| Contents |
GENRE. Utopianotes: cruising ; The utopianotes; Utopianotes: white men ; Utopia, the Bronx ; Utopianotes: Robert Moses's grave ; A brief history of American utopianism ; Utopianotes: North American phalanx ; Fellow travelers on the road to nowhere ; Utopianotes; Mount Lebanon Shaker community ; Living ; Utopianotes: Gospel Flat Farm ; How to start a society ; Utopianotes: Webster Cafe -- COMMUNE. Utopianotes: Salt Lake City Temple grounds ; Living ; Utopianotes: minutes from a meeting ; The Bruderhof ; Utopianotes: The Aurora Colony ; The ancestors ; Utopianotes: Lost Valley Intentional Community ; The Big Muddy Ranch ; Utopianotes: St. Jude's Day ; Living ; Utopianotes: adjunct flophouse ; The simple way ; Utopianotes: Benincasa ; The farm ; Utopianotes: earthships ; The flesh failures (let the sunshine in) ; Utopianotes: Portland Night High School -- HEAVEN. Utopianotes: garden of happiness ; Living ; Utopianotes: woman town ; What's heaven got to do with it? ; Utopianotes: Northeast Association of Education and Industry ; Odd fellows at the Rockland Palace ; Utopianotes: Eleanor's farm ; Divine upstate ; Utopianotes: "Heaven is a place on earth," music video dir. by Diane Keaton -- THE GARDEN & THE CITY. Utopianotes: Woodbine ; The Catskills ; Utopianotes: Yellow Springs, Ohio ; At least I will die free ; Utopianotes: Waffle House ; Gate Hill Cooperative ; Utopianotes: the Sou'wester ; Living ; Utopianotes: The Mutual Aid Society ; The beginning and the end ; Utopianotes: New Day Womyn and Femme-of-Center Retreat ; Living ; Utopianotes: Annunciation Church. |
| Summary |
"HEAVEN IS A PLACE ON EARTH tells the stories of both living and long-gone Americans trying to make utopia. Within these stories is Adrian Shirk's own practical and moral inquiry: how can she live a life "in community" in America today, a life which is not organized around private property, automation, and the acquisition of personal wealth? When Shirk's father-in-law has a stroke and loses his ability to speak and walk, her husband becomes his primary caretaker. Navigating the broken American health care system to advocate for his father is practically a full time job-on top of his PhD studies. Adrian makes a living for them both by shuttling all over New York City, piecing together adjunct teaching positions. She seeks solace in her community of artists and writers, in trying to identify the inspiring or replicable within the histories and ideas of utopia-making in our dystopian country. Rather than "no place", Shirk reframes utopian experimentation in the United States as something that, according to the laws of capital and conquest, shouldn't be able to exist-but did anyway, if only for a moment. Failure seems integral, and is that a comfort? Told in a series of essays that balance memoir with field work, HEAVEN IS A PLACE ON EARTH is an idiosyncratic-and despite everything, often jubilant-study of American utopian experiments, as well as the story of a young woman's quest to create a more communal life in a time of unending economic and social precarity"-- Provided by publisher. |
| Subject |
Communitarianism -- United States.
|
|
Belonging (Social psychology) -- United States.
|
|
Utopias -- United States.
|
|
SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / General.
|
|
Belonging (Social psychology) (OCoLC)fst01764316
|
|
Communitarianism. (OCoLC)fst00870629
|
|
Utopias. (OCoLC)fst01163359
|
|
United States. (OCoLC)fst01204155
|
| Genre/Form |
POLITICAL SCIENCE / Utopias^SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / Social Theory^HISTORY / United States / 20th Century.
|
| ISBN |
9781640093300 (hardcover) |
|
1640093303 (hardcover) |
|
9781640093317 (ebook) |
|
