LITR 5737: Literary & Historical Utopias
Final Exam 2005

Final Exam

Date: Thursday, 30 June

Format: in-class or email

Time: In-class students take the exam during class time (3-6pm). Email students can spend 3 hours writing in or around class time. Email exams are due by 7pm, 16 June.

Length: You should write for at least two hours. Most good students use all three hours writing and reworking.

Assignment: Write two essays on your choice of the topics listed below. You may combine or overlap materials from different topics as helpful, but in any case write two distinct essays.

Topic 1. Evaluate and revise a course objective (or part of one, or some combination), referring to 3-4 course texts across the semester, with at least two coming since the midterm. Refer to at least one class presentation. Welcome to refer briefly to texts and information beyond the course. If you choose this topic, you may refer to and extend your discussion of the objective you emphasized in the midterm, but not required.

Topic 2. Evaluate the injection of “millennialism” into the utopian narrative. How does millennialism change the concept or dynamics of utopia? What literary or cultural advantages or disadvantages accrue? Refer to Revelation, Parable of the Sower, a presentation, and perhaps to another text, as helpful. Refer to Objective 2 and especially 2c.

Topic 3. How much does Callenbach’s Ecotopia resemble and differ from previous utopian texts? How much is an ecotopian concept already built into previous utopian or dystopian fictions, or not? Refer primarily to Ecotopia but also to two other texts and a presentation.

Topic 4. What literary considerations are foremost in your study of utopias? Concentrate on Objectives 1 & 2. Topic 1 might lead to this reflection, but this distinct topic is offered in the interests of cultivating better literary focus in future versions of the course.)

Final provisions:

·        Refer to Genesis-Revelation, Parable of the Sower, and Ecotopia somewhere in exam.

·        Welcome to refer to texts before midterm.

·        Make at least 1-2 references to historical utopias, historical presentations, or web reviews or materials somewhere in exam.

·        Provide a title for each essay.

·        Indicate the number of the topic (or combination of topics) you’re answering.