Utopia and Dystopia
Utopian and dystopian literature from antiquity to the present.
Course description
Utopian visions have been created by people for thousands of years and have gone through four major stages. At first, they were stories told to explain why humans experienced pain, suffering, and death — Gardens of Eden that humans had been expelled from or had otherwise lost. The second phase of Utopian story-telling arose as a result of crisis and dislocation: stories such as The Republic or Thomas More's Utopia fulfilled the dual functions of critiquing contemporary societies and suggesting remedies to the problems they faced. Beginning with the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, a third form of Utopian thought arose, developing plans or blueprints for human perfection. Lastly, growing recognition of the limitations of human intellect led to the final phase of Utopian thought — Dystopic nightmares suggesting that all Utopian dreams were doomed to disappointment, failure, and worse. At present, we all live in a world caught between the Enlightenment's Utopian dreams and the Post-modern Dystopic nightmares.
The course will examine some of the major utopian and dystopian literature from ancient times to the present.