none 10.5325/utopianstudies.35.1.0187 The Pennsylvania State University Press The Pennsylvania State University Press 3287 161518713 102065 2024061014473585200 10.5325 2026-05-19T09:38:25Z 2024-06-10T10:47:44Z 0 Utopian Studies 1045-991X 2154-9648 03 2024 03 18 2024 35 1 Merve Tabur University of Oslo; Utrecht University http://orcid.org/0009-0003-2687-8276 ABSTRACT Contemporary Arabic speculative fiction, particularly following the Arab Spring uprisings, is often interpreted as part of an emerging trend of Arab dystopias responding to political upheaval. These texts’ ecological concerns, which produce diverse conceptions of futurity, are understudied. This article examines how urban futures are envisioned in an Egyptian speculative fiction text, Ahmed Naji’s Istikhdām al-ḥayāh (2014; Using Life, 2017). Putting Using Life in dialogue with discussions on Gulf futurism and Arabfuturisms, the article first examines the text’s depiction of hegemonic techno-futurist visions, aimed at manifesting a global utopian future through urban design and development projects. The author argues that this futurist discourse, which has affinities with Gulf futurism, operates through the dual enframing of nature and history, and then demonstrates how the text resists this techno-futurist vision through an assemblage aesthetics that echoes Sulaiman Majali’s Arabfuturism(s) manifesto. The novel’s assemblage aesthetics, which is central to its conception of counter-futures, redefines the human relationship to urban ecologies and to literature through an emphasis on embodiment. 03 2024 03 18 2024 187 208 10.5325/utopianstudies.35.1.0187 https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/utopian-studies/article/35/1/187/387986/Settling-the-Desert-Unsettling-the-Mirage-Urban https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/utopian-studies/article-pdf/35/1/187/2102420/utopianstudies_35_1_187.pdf https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/psup/utopian-studies/article-pdf/35/1/187/2102420/utopianstudies_35_1_187.pdf https://muse.jhu.edu/article/930185