Shahi al-Ḥuriya: Militant optimism and freedom tea

<jats:p>This essay traces utopian impulses, following Ernst Bloch and José Esteban Muñoz, in three musical performances of 2011 Libya. It contends that these performances illustrate the militant optimism that characterized this historical moment in Libya, and that reading them closely enables a nuanced engagement with Blochian theorizations of utopia as they are relevant to the quotidian both in seemingly unremarkable and in extraordinary times.</jats:p>