Donald H. Zárate Jr.
@donaldzarate.bsky.social
3rd Year PhD student at the University of California, Riverside studying the concept of Utopia and Intentional Communities
“It’s impossible to know what the future will bring…What matters is that here and now, inequality is real, grotesque, and a cancer on society...” — Tom Malleson, conversation with Bryant Sculos, New Political Science 43.3 (2024) #Inequality #PoliticalTheory #NewPoliticalScience #SpeculativePolitics
December 8, 2025 at 11:54 PM
“It’s impossible to know what the future will bring…What matters is that here and now, inequality is real, grotesque, and a cancer on society...” — Tom Malleson, conversation with Bryant Sculos, New Political Science 43.3 (2024) #Inequality #PoliticalTheory #NewPoliticalScience #SpeculativePolitics
“The relation of festivals to utopia thus rests not on celebration of excess…but on their pointed and often irreverent, anarchic egalitarianism.”
— Claeys, Utopianism for a Dying Planet, p.135
#UtopianStudies #PoliticalTheory #Festivals #Literature #utopianism #CriticalTheory
— Claeys, Utopianism for a Dying Planet, p.135
#UtopianStudies #PoliticalTheory #Festivals #Literature #utopianism #CriticalTheory
December 7, 2025 at 3:17 AM
“The relation of festivals to utopia thus rests not on celebration of excess…but on their pointed and often irreverent, anarchic egalitarianism.”
— Claeys, Utopianism for a Dying Planet, p.135
#UtopianStudies #PoliticalTheory #Festivals #Literature #utopianism #CriticalTheory
— Claeys, Utopianism for a Dying Planet, p.135
#UtopianStudies #PoliticalTheory #Festivals #Literature #utopianism #CriticalTheory
Honored to give the Lindon Barrett Award in Black Studies talk.
📅 Dec 4, 3:00 PM
📍 HMNSS 1500, UCR
I’ll share work from “Here and Now,” on how everyday Black life makes utopia a lived practice of imagining + living otherwise —hope to see you there #BlackUtopias #Otherwise #BlackLiterature #fiction
📅 Dec 4, 3:00 PM
📍 HMNSS 1500, UCR
I’ll share work from “Here and Now,” on how everyday Black life makes utopia a lived practice of imagining + living otherwise —hope to see you there #BlackUtopias #Otherwise #BlackLiterature #fiction
December 4, 2025 at 4:26 PM
Honored to give the Lindon Barrett Award in Black Studies talk.
📅 Dec 4, 3:00 PM
📍 HMNSS 1500, UCR
I’ll share work from “Here and Now,” on how everyday Black life makes utopia a lived practice of imagining + living otherwise —hope to see you there #BlackUtopias #Otherwise #BlackLiterature #fiction
📅 Dec 4, 3:00 PM
📍 HMNSS 1500, UCR
I’ll share work from “Here and Now,” on how everyday Black life makes utopia a lived practice of imagining + living otherwise —hope to see you there #BlackUtopias #Otherwise #BlackLiterature #fiction
“…truth [is] a collage of competing perspectives.”
— Robertson, The Black Utopians, p. 257
#BlackStudies #BlackUtopians #HistoryTwitter #Epistemology #CriticalTheory
— Robertson, The Black Utopians, p. 257
#BlackStudies #BlackUtopians #HistoryTwitter #Epistemology #CriticalTheory
November 30, 2025 at 10:56 PM
“…truth [is] a collage of competing perspectives.”
— Robertson, The Black Utopians, p. 257
#BlackStudies #BlackUtopians #HistoryTwitter #Epistemology #CriticalTheory
— Robertson, The Black Utopians, p. 257
#BlackStudies #BlackUtopians #HistoryTwitter #Epistemology #CriticalTheory
Reposted by Donald H. Zárate Jr.
New paper with Marina Bedny out in eLife (elifesciences.org/articles/101...). Main takeaway: Different kinds of causal knowledge are supported by different semantic brain networks - consistent with the "intuitive theories" framework from developmental psychology. 1/
Animacy semantic network supports causal inferences about illness
Making causal inferences about illness, compared to making causal inferences about mechanical breakdown and reading causally unconnected sentences, activates a semantic brain network implicated in the conceptual representation of animate entities (e.g. people, animals).
elifesciences.org
November 20, 2025 at 10:15 PM
New paper with Marina Bedny out in eLife (elifesciences.org/articles/101...). Main takeaway: Different kinds of causal knowledge are supported by different semantic brain networks - consistent with the "intuitive theories" framework from developmental psychology. 1/
Reposted by Donald H. Zárate Jr.
IN NEW ISSUE: Analysing protest participation - @danmercea.bsky.social, @feligsantos.bsky.social & Matthias Hoffmann argue it's a gradient, beyond the binary of participation and non-participation & suggest practical mobilisation pathways: buff.ly/XfEkdYm (OPEN ACCESS)
@polstudiesassoc.bsky.social
@polstudiesassoc.bsky.social
November 8, 2025 at 10:00 PM
IN NEW ISSUE: Analysing protest participation - @danmercea.bsky.social, @feligsantos.bsky.social & Matthias Hoffmann argue it's a gradient, beyond the binary of participation and non-participation & suggest practical mobilisation pathways: buff.ly/XfEkdYm (OPEN ACCESS)
@polstudiesassoc.bsky.social
@polstudiesassoc.bsky.social
Reposted by Donald H. Zárate Jr.
How can something as small as a pronoun fuel identity politics? Hear UCR professor Jennifer Merolla introduces a recently published study on how Trump framed the in-group in the 2016 presidential election. youtube.com/shorts/-EUf3... #polisky
How can something as small as a pronoun fuel identity politics?
YouTube video by Political Science Research
youtube.com
November 7, 2025 at 4:04 PM
How can something as small as a pronoun fuel identity politics? Hear UCR professor Jennifer Merolla introduces a recently published study on how Trump framed the in-group in the 2016 presidential election. youtube.com/shorts/-EUf3... #polisky
Reposted by Donald H. Zárate Jr.
In #FirstView by Donald H. Zárate, Jr: "From Exclusion to Utopia: A Comparative Study of Intentional Community Formation"
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
From Exclusion to Utopia: A Comparative Study of Intentional Community Formation - Donald H. Zárate, 2025
This paper develops a novel theory of intentional community formation grounded in systemic exclusion. Intentional communities—ranging from Amish settlements and...
journals.sagepub.com
November 3, 2025 at 2:32 AM
In #FirstView by Donald H. Zárate, Jr: "From Exclusion to Utopia: A Comparative Study of Intentional Community Formation"
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Utopian thinking isn’t naive—it’s what drives people to build new institutions when old ones fail them.
My latest article explores how exclusion becomes imagination.
doi.org/10.1177/1065...
#RadicalHope #Utopia #SocialChange #Community #Imagination #Hope #Politics #IntentionalCommunities #Society
My latest article explores how exclusion becomes imagination.
doi.org/10.1177/1065...
#RadicalHope #Utopia #SocialChange #Community #Imagination #Hope #Politics #IntentionalCommunities #Society
From Exclusion to Utopia: A Comparative Study of Intentional Community Formation - Donald H. Zárate, 2025
This paper develops a novel theory of intentional community formation grounded in systemic exclusion. Intentional communities—ranging from Amish settlements and...
doi.org
November 7, 2025 at 1:51 AM
Utopian thinking isn’t naive—it’s what drives people to build new institutions when old ones fail them.
My latest article explores how exclusion becomes imagination.
doi.org/10.1177/1065...
#RadicalHope #Utopia #SocialChange #Community #Imagination #Hope #Politics #IntentionalCommunities #Society
My latest article explores how exclusion becomes imagination.
doi.org/10.1177/1065...
#RadicalHope #Utopia #SocialChange #Community #Imagination #Hope #Politics #IntentionalCommunities #Society
That’s me ☺️
Congrats to Donald Zarate (PhD student, Political Science) on winning UCR’s 2025 Lindon Barrett Award for his essay “Here and Now: Black Perspectives on Antiutopianism.” A powerful reflection on Black utopian traditions and their radical possibilities. 👏 #UCR
November 6, 2025 at 5:21 AM
That’s me ☺️