For a Sociology of the Literature. Dystopia and Utopia in Philip K. Dick

The reflection will focus on examining both dystopian and utopian dimensions present in the works of the American science fiction writer Philip Kindred Dick. The dysphoric idea of progress arising from its own negation marks the first stretch of the author’s creative parable. The prediction of a probable apocalypse without palingenesis has in fact faded in the last phase of Dick’s narrative production. The paper aims to demonstrate how the eschatological significance of the writer’s novels is articulated in a worldview that, in terms of imaginative production, anticipates some current social phenomena. The methodology used will be of historiographical-epistemological type. The analysis will be focused on two significant works, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, published in 1965, and Valis, published in 1981.