Benedict Anderson’s imagined communities theory leaves imagination itself untheorized.

Evidence

The sociotemporal horizon of our speculative communities has shifted in ways that have surprised and confused us, dramatically refashioning how notions of collectivity are experienced and represented in everyday life. But we have only begun to scratch the surface of the processes propelling these shifts. A more systematic theory of the speculative imagination and its role in political economy is required in order to fully account for the generative, relational, and moral dimensions of speculative communities. This is where the book begins to part ways with Anderson’s analysis. For all its great strengths, and despite its pioneering coupling of time-space experiences with political connectivity and social organization, Imagined Communities never explicitly theorizes either of the two constitutive terms of its title. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 104

Categorization

• XREF: Points back at the reader’s prior knowledge of Anderson’s Imagined Communities as the foundational theory this book is explicitly correcting. — connects to: Anderson’s imagined communities remain static whereas imagination is a dynamic act — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 155; Imagination was dismissed from theory because of its liberal-freedom connotations — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living With…, 147
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Anderson’s imagined communities remain static whereas imagination is a dynamic act — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 155; Imagination was dismissed from theory because of its liberal-freedom connotations — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living With…, 147

Broader Connections

• Anderson’s imagined communities remain static whereas imagination is a dynamic act #expands (0.92) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 155