Literature of the Future: scenarios & styles
utopia / dystopia / ecotopia
perfectly planned worlds / dysfunctional world / + ecology
Graduate course: Literary and Historical Utopias
Terms
“Utopia” has either historical or literary significance, or both:
Utopia = an experimental community
intended to reform or escape from normal human society, often by substituting
planning, cooperation, or collective values and practices in place of
laissez-faire, competition, and individualism.
or
Utopia = a novel describing life in such a community or world.
The word “utopia” comes from the title of Sir Thomas More’s utopian novel / tract of 1516, Utopia. The word is made up of Greek parts, formed either from
ou (no) + topos (place, as in “topography”) to mean “no place,”
or
eu (good, as in “euphoria”) + topos (place) to mean “good place.”
The term “utopia” has been varied, especially in two ways:
Dystopia = a society that is opposite from a utopia, or a utopia that’s gone dysfunctional. “Any utopia is someone else's dystopia.”
Ecotopia = Ecological Utopia, a community whose collective health is based on a close imitation of nature’s interconnectivity. Term comes from our final text, Ecotopia, a utopian novel from 1975 by Ernest Callenbach.
Millennium is usually a synonym or euphemism for apocalypse, but often with a softer or more metaphorical tone.
List of Utopian Communities and Texts
Standard features of utopian / dystopian literature
literary issues
entertain & educate formula tends toward educate: didactic, preachy