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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Jacob Jewusiak
This is the authors' accepted manuscript of an article that has been published in its final definitive form by The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019.
For re-use rights please refer to the publisher's terms and conditions.
This essay argues that William Morris’s work displaces an implicit youthful bias in theories of utopia and socialism by making senescence a structuring principle of his ideal society. For Morris, capitalist age ideology stratifies the lifespan into zones of youth and old age, usefulness and excess, and he perceived the rising reformist socialism—like that of H. G. Wells or Edward Bellamy—as reproducing this hierarchy by demanding shorter intervals of work and early retirement. Viewing the superannuation of workers as emblematic of capitalist waste, Morris annexes senescence from the realm of excess and non-productivity, expanding the horizon of revolutionary possibility beyond that of youth and theorizing utopia around networks of dependence and generational reciprocity.
Author(s): Jewusiak J
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: ELH
Year: 2019
Volume: 86
Issue: 1
Pages: 245-266
Print publication date: 06/03/2019
Online publication date: 06/03/2019
Acceptance date: 01/01/2018
Date deposited: 15/11/2020
ISSN (print): 0013-8304
ISSN (electronic): 1080-6547
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
URL: https://doi.org/10.1353/elh.2019.0009
DOI: 10.1353/elh.2019.0009
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