There was, moreover, a utopian impulse behind Matta-Clark's re-use of abandoned buildings.

But for her, too, the utopian impulse passed.

"The utopian impulse of the period is missing," he said.

His political principles were insistently liberal, and when he was seized by a more radical or utopian impulse, he liked to invoke the lofty ideals of Peter Kropotkin, the Russian anarchist.

The frequent clanging in Ms. Fennelly's head has partly been the sound of her utopian impulses colliding with cold, uncompromising realities.

For unclear reasons, philosophy appears to have been less marked by utopian impulses than other areas of culture.

The harsh rules that limit the shelf lives of utopian impulses would seem to spell doom for an institution as shapeless and impractical as Day's.

As elsewhere in Boyle's work, the conflict in "The Inner Circle" is organized around the clash between this utopian impulse and the countervailing desire for stability, harmony and compromise.

The quest for pure rebellion in some punk rock lyrics reflects the spread of anarchism, or perhaps nihilism - anarchism without the utopian impulses - among teenagers.

The work tends to value wild humor, shock, a concern for history, a muscular visual sensibility, and a fascination with the utopian impulse.