There it is—the idea: justice as utopia

Fredric Jameson, in memoriam

Authors

  • Rocío Zamora-Sauma University of Costa Rica (UCR) Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15517/revfil.2025.65003

Keywords:

Jameson, Utopia, Imagination, Transitional justice, Testimony

Abstract

In tribute to Fredric Jameson, a few months after his passing, this article explores the social function of utopia in his thought, in dialogue with practices of transitional justice in Guatemala –particularly the Ixil Trial and the testimony of one of its witnesses, Ana de León López. The article argues that, despite the decline of the great revolutionary utopias of the twentieth century, alternative forms of utopian imagination endure. It suggests that certain processes of transitional justice, such as the Guatemalan case, can be understood as sites where the utopian imagination is constructed and reactivated in the sense proposed by Jameson. In these instances, utopia re-emerges from lived experience and from the desire for historicization and justice. 

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Author Biography

  • Rocío Zamora-Sauma, University of Costa Rica (UCR)

    Profesora asociada de la Escuela de Filosofía de la Universidad de Costa Rica y editora de la Revista de Filosofía (UCR). Realizó el doctorado en el Instituto de Estudios Latinoamericanos de la Universidad Libre de Berlín y la Maestría en el programa Europhilosophie en las universidades de Luxemburgo, Toulouse II-Le Mirail y la Universidad Católica de Lovaina en Bélgica. Sus investigaciones y publicaciones abordan temas de filosofía contemporánea, memoria, archivo, pensamiento latinoamericano y estudios espaciales, con énfasis en perspectivas críticas y estéticas. 

References

Archila Neira, Mauricio. 2024. Labrar el pasado. Reflexiones sobre el oficio del historiador. Bogotá: Universidad del Rosario.

Derrida, Jacques. 2005. Poétique et politique du témoignage. Paris: L’Herne.

Emcke, Carolin. 2013. Weil es sagbar ist. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer.

Hartog, François. 2012. «El tiempo de las víctimas». Revista de Estudios Sociales 44 (44): 12–19. https://doi.org/10.7440/res44.2012.02.

Jameson, Fredric. 1991. El posmodernismo o la lógica cultural del capitalismo avanzado. Buenos Aires, Barcelona: Paidós.

———. 2002. «De la sustitución de importaciones literarias y culturales en el tercer mundo: el caso del testimonio». En La Voz del Otro: Testimonio, Subalternidad y Verdad Narrativa, editado por John Beverley y Hugo Achúgar, 129-46. Revista Abrapalabra, Universidad Rafael Landívar.

———. 2003. «The end of temporality». Critical Inquiry 29 (4): 695–718. https://doi.org/10.1086/377726.

———. 2004. «La política de la utopía». New Left Review 25 (marzo-abril): 37–54. https://newleftreview.es/issues/25/articles/fredric-jameson-la-politica-de-la-utopia.pdf.

———. 2015. «La estética de la singularidad». New Left Review 92:109–41.

Nance, Kimberly A. 2006. Can Literature promote justice? Trauma Narrative and Social Action in Latin American Testimonio. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.

Sikkink, Kathryn. 2018. Razones para la esperanza. La legitimidad y efectividad de los derechos humanos de cara al futuro. Traducido por Sebastián Villamizar Santamaría. Argentina: Siglo XXI Editores.

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Published

2025-08-14

Issue

Vol. 64 No. 169 (2025): Philosophy Journal

Section

Dossier I

License

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