烏托邦中的物質想像：勒瑰恩的《黑暗的左手》與《一無所有》

Abstract

在閱讀烏托邦文本的過程中，虛構世界裡的物質性常因讀者對作品意識形態與政治偏好的關注而被忽略。即便如此，烏托邦仍是由人類居民與物件、物質環境所共同組成。在新物質主義提倡去人類中心的本體論，並強調物質之能動性、生命力與活力的同時，烏托邦研究亦須重新審視「烏托邦」的定義，不再將其視為人類強行加諸其意志於被動物質上的產物。 在第一章中，本論文首先探討珍•貝內特(Jane Bennett)與托馬斯•里克特(Thomas Rickert)兩位新物質主義學家的理論，以及恩斯特•布洛赫(Ernst Bloch)在歷史物質主義脈絡下的烏托邦理論三者之間的異同。基於三方理論的共通處，本文提出未來烏托邦研究應朝向更關注物質的方向發展。接著，本文透過貝內特提出之人/非人集合體(human-nonhuman assemblage)與里克特的環境修辭學(ambient rhetoric)等概念來檢視娥蘇拉•勒瑰恩(Ursula K. Le Guin)的兩本小說《黑暗的左手》(1969)及《一無所有》(1974)。第二章探討《黑暗的左手》中所呈現人類身體的物質能動性與身體如何和非人物質組成集合體，進而將人與物的地位同等化。第三章聚焦於《一無所有》中的烏托邦社群如何透過與物 質環境的調和(attunement)在荒蕪之地實踐理想生活。 本論文的兩大重點為探究烏托邦理論發展可能以及將理論應用於勒瑰恩之作品分析，藉此釐清勒瑰恩的烏托邦主義如何形塑人與物質世界的關係，並改變烏托邦原本過於人類中心的特質。

In our reading of a utopian text, materiality in the fictional world has often been eclipsed by our concern for the ideology and political orientations within the story. However, utopia is composed of material things and surroundings just as much as its human inhabitants. As the new materialisms call for a renewed ontology that recognizes the agency, force, and vitality of nonhuman elements, utopian theories also need to reevaluate the concept of utopia, and see it as more than mere imposition of humans’ abstract ideal on the arrangement of inert matter. In this thesis, I first propose to initiate theoretical dialogue between Jane Bennett’s and Thomas Rickert’s new materialist theories and the historical materialist utopian theory of Ernst Bloch. I argue that there is a utopian affinity between these theories, and that it will benefit current utopian studies if we move towards a more materially-minded perspective. Secondly, I draw on Bennett’s concept of human-nonhuman assemblages and Rickert’s ambient rhetoric to examine Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) and The Dispossessed (1974). In The Left Hand of Darkness, Le Guin portrays the human body as having its own material agency when it enters into assemblage with other things, thus radically equalizing both humans and things within the assemblage. The Dispossessed further presents Le Guin’s imagination of how a community live out their utopian life even on a barren desert planet by attuning to the ambience of the surrounding material world. By an engagement with both utopian theory and Le Guin’s utopian works, this thesis seeks to explore Le Guin’s thoughts on the utopian relation between man and world, and transform utopia’s originally human-centric nature.