Tropical Utopia, Tropical Dystopia—Aesthetic Openings to Other Spaces: Interview with Michael J. Shapiro

Michael J. Shapiro is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and one of the most regarded critical voices in Political Theory, International Relations (IR), and many other fields. Indeed, Mike Shapiro’s transdisciplinary work has been for decades challenging (disciplinary) boundaries and broadening our understanding of a variety of topics, from methodology to culture and war. A world-renowned, and indisciplinary critical thinker, Mike has profoundly marked Critical Thought, including critical IR theory, with his Language and Political Understanding (1981), International/Intertextual Relations ((co-edited with James Der Derian) 1989), Challenging Boundaries ((co-edited with Hayward R. Alker) 1996), Violent Cartographies (1997), Moral Spaces ((co-edited with David Campbell) 1999), Methods and Nations (2004), just to mention (only) a few of his groundbreaking books and edited volumes. Mike has collaborated with and taught at the Institute of International Relations (IRI), PUC-Rio, Rio de Janeiro, numerous times in the last two decades, offering courses at IRI’s Postgraduate Program and teaching (almost) annually at the International Political Sociology (IPS) Winter School since 2015. Considered one of the leading figures of the ‘aesthetic turn’ in Critical Thinking, including critical IR theory, he has published Cinematic Political Thought (1999), Cinematic Geopolitics (2009), Studies in Trans-Disciplinary Method: After the aesthetic turn (2013), and The Political Sublime (2018), among other publications on ‘the politics of aesthetics’ and ‘philopoesis’. Shapiro’s work highlights how engaging with art (both as objects of analysis and as instructive forms of thinking) can encourage creative and disruptive thinking in politics. He argues that Science-fiction, in particular, with its estrangement and ‘discognition’, not only opens up worlds of thinking, but allows us to ‘think with worlds’ – we could not imagine a more fitting and eventful (re)opening to this special issue and the contributions within. In this interview, conducted by e-mail in June/July of 2024, Prof. Shapiro shared some of his thoughts on aesthetics, politics, and science fiction.