Printed in Utopia: The Renaissance's Radicalism

by Ed Simon

Printed in Utopia examines the bloody era of the Renaissance in all of its contradictions and moments of utopian possibility. From the dissenting religious anarchists of the 17th century, to the feminist verse of Amelia Lanyer and Richard Barnfield's poetics of gay rights. From an analysis of the rhetoric of feces in Martin Luther, to the spiritual liberation of Anna Trapnell.

What is presented is the radical Renaissance too often hidden away, an age which birthed our modern world in all of its ugliness, but which still holds the latent seeds for a new and better future world.

Genres: History

304 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2020

About the author

Ed Simon is an Editor-at-Large with The Marginalia Review of Books, a channel of the Los Angeles Review of Books, an editor at Berfrois, and a staff writer for the Millions. A specialist in early modern literature and religion, he received a PhD in English from Lehigh University. A widely published freelance author, his essays regularly appear on sites such as The Atlantic, The Paris Review, Jacobin, Aeon, Nautilus, Atlas Obscura, Berfrois, The Revealer, Killing the Buddha, Religion Dispatches, Salon, Newsweek, and Tablet, among several others. A proud native Pittsburgher, he now lives in Massachusetts.

Reviews

[Sem · Rating 4 out of 5]

It could do with a stern editor - there are many errors, at least in the Kindle edition - and a bibliography or, even better, notes so that I don't need to check each essay for specific references, but I won't deduct a star. That would be petty.