Course texts

Thomas More, Utopia (1516)

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland (1915)

Ayn Rand, Anthem (1938)

Ernest Callenbach, Ecotopia (1975)

Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake (2004)

Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (1887)

Genesis, Revelation, & Book of Acts (BCE > 1^st century AD/CE)

Plato's Republic & Golden Age myths

selections from other classic, multicultural, & postmodern texts   

Student Assignments

midterm (30 June)

research posts (2 + review in final; due 15-16 June; end of session)

final exam (end of session)

Seminar presentations

discussion-starter for reading assignments

web reviews / presentations mostly on historical utopias

Model Assignment highlights from previous midterms, research posts, or final exams

Utopia has historical and literary meaning:

historical utopia = an experimental or "intentional community" intended to reform or escape from normal society, often by substituting planning, cooperation, or collective values and practices in place of freemarket competition and unenlightened individualism.

literary utopia = a novel or tract (or shorter fiction) representing life and characters in such a community

“Utopia” comes from Thomas More’s Utopia (1516). More coined the word from Greek parts, either

ou (no) + topos (place, as in “topography”) to mean “no place”

or

eu (good, as in “euphoria”) + topos (place) to mean “good place”

(Etymological confusion is consistent with generic instability of utopia / dystopia, serious or satirical.)

Variations: Dystopia = society opposite from a utopia, or a utopia gone dysfunctional. (“Any utopia is someone else's dystopia.”)

Ecotopia = Ecological Utopia, a community whose collective social health imitates nature’s interconnectivity—from Ecotopia, 1975 novel by Ernest Callenbach. (X)

Millennium, apocalypse, or End-Times is often associated with utopian narratives, as when the biblical Book of Revelation ends with a vision of heaven (partly as restored Garden of Eden).

Utopian Communities and Texts (list)

Utopian Fiction & Experimental Communities in North America / USA (chronology)

Standard features / conventions of utopian / dystopian literature

Counter-Utopian (or anti-utopian) Tradition

Utopian motives

Introduction to Genres

list of genres

Index to Terms

Literature of Ideas

Decline or progress?

Monday, 8 June 

Readings: Genesis & Revelation; Acts; The Golden Age; Plato's Republic

Presentation by 2013 LITR 5439 student Hannah Wells: Model Assignments; 2013 Utopias syllabus

Discussion: Identify yourself and educational / career interests; what previous knowledge or reading of utopian / dystopian literature? Or related genres?

Instructor's presentation: Brave New World +- Nineteen Eighty-Four

Agenda:

welcome, syllabus, website
art / literature's purpose: entertain and instruct; literature of ideas
review assignments, texts
Hannah Wells
self-introductions
ID / presentation preferences
[break]
research posts
classical & scriptural utopias
Tuesday,Thursday assignments & presenters
Brave New World

Tuesday, 9 June

Readings: Thomas More, Utopia (1516)—read through book 1 & start book 2

Discussion starter for Book 1:  Umaymah Shahid

Web review: Thomas More sites :  Michaela Fox

Web review: Twin Oaks: Melissa Hodgkins

Agenda: roll, assignments, preview, presentations

Web:  Michaela

Discussion:

Web:

Assignments: Warning about Utopia: tedious reading, but clear and rewarding—"earned classic": could spend longer with it but may not want to. Work through Book 1 however you can and help each other out in discussion Tuesday.

Discussion questions:

1. How does or doesn't Utopia resemble a novel? (Broadly, the "modern English novel" would not appear for two more centuries with DeFoe's Robinson Crusoe 1719). (Bakhtin 98) (genre)

2. As the novelistic passages are brief and dispersed, what other reading pleasures? Where does interest quicken or slacken, and why? What aspects of a novel are missing, and what happens instead?

3. What if any evidence of More as a Christian Humanist?

Historical background to More's Utopia (1516): Printing press developed 1450s (e.g., Gutenberg Bibles)—More's traveler makes references to Utopians learning printing from European visitors (2.32)
*Discovery of America 1492—More makes direct references to travels and writings of Amerigo Vespucci (1.1e)
*Renaissance (1400s-1500s) revives humanistic and empirical thought from Classical Greece and Rome, joining European emphasis on divine revelation and tradition from Middle Ages
*Rise of modern "power politics," formalized in Machiavelli's The Prince (1513, 1532)—Utopia, especially in its emphasis on "If I were advising a leader," often seems like a reply to The Prince that differs by emphasizing a need for leaders to be humble, virtuous models rather than power players; compare also to Plato's education of philosopher-kings in The Republic.

Thursday, 11 June

Readings: complete Thomas More, Utopia (1516); begin C. P. Gilman, Herland, chs. 1-2.

Discussion starter for Book Two of Utopia: Russell Lanier

Discussion starter for Herland, chs. 1-2: instructor

Model Assignment highlights (research posts): Lori Wheeler

Instructor's presentation: B.F. Skinner, Walden Two (1948) + Los Horcones + Nudge

Agenda: research post assignments

Models: Lori Wheeler

Utopia bk 2: Russell

motivating utopia: pageantry (2.40), spectacle, emulation; property and family

[break]

begin Herland + (genre); action: formal genre of novel; back to More & Bakhtin

conventions: journey, gardens, uniforms, irony / satire, 

Walden Two + (objs. 1a, 4a) 

Discussion Questions:

Utopia: 1. What problems with characterization does utopian fiction generate? What balance of fictional entertainment and social instruction? What parts work best? What drives you crazy? What does the report leave out?

2. What conventions or set-pieces typify the utopian genre? One possibility: origin story when Utopus separates the island from the mainland.

3. Utopia's most threatening reforms may be abolition of private property, and reshaping of family relations. Are these two proposals related? Is family a form of property?

4. What textual evidence of More as a Christian Humanist?

Herland: 1. What aspects of the novel or fiction are immediately evident?

2. Describe Gilman's prose style—what advances in utopian fiction as fiction?

3. How is Gilman's style still limited by utopian conventions in characterization, viewpoint?

4. What advantages to telling the story from men's perspective? Satire? (an allied genre—e.g., maybe More's Utopia was satirical?)

Monday, 15 June

Readings: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland (complete)

Handout: "Charlotte Perkins Gilman," Handbook to American Women's History

Agenda: research posts

web:

assignments

disc:

literature in literary utopias

labor-credits in Walden Two & Twin Oaks;

property / family as private 7.30, 8.97, 7.82, 9.57 > Woman on the Edge of Time

utopian motives

Discussion Questions:

1. What conventions of utopian fiction continue? Describe Gilman's prose style—what advances in utopian fiction as fiction?

2. Gilman has style, but how is it limited by utopian conventions in characterization, viewpoint, even content? Specifically, the visiting men are far more individualized than the more admirable women: what do we learn about utopian and fictional characterization? Also, how convincing are the domestic or sexual relations? Written in 1915, so what limits to representation?

3. What advantages to telling the story from men's perspective? Satire?

3a. What conventions or innovations distinguish a feminist or women's utopia?

4. Associate Gilman and Herland with the Progressive Era, periods of progress as spawning utopias?

5. Ch.4 describes literature produced by the utopia itself—what misgivings? Compare "Berrian's novels" in Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (1887) , ch. 15. (Instructor will direct.) 3.43; 4.69-4.70, 5.3. 9.46-9 (cf. Equiano 1.3), 9.58, 9.66

6. Herland appears in 1915, a half-century after Darwin's Origin of Species (1859). How does Darwinian or evolutionary thought appear in both the men's and women's attitudes and behavior—e.g., the advent of Parthenogenesis, the women's centuries-long cultivation or breeding, the men's defense of modern American economy as "Social Darwinism," in which an unregulated freemarket creates class struggle & "survival of the fittest."

6a. How may Darwinian utopias be compatible with Behaviorist utopias?

Agenda: research post assignment; Model Assignments; MLA bibliography (Modern Language Association); reference librarians

Anthem discussion: Lori

genre conventions of utopia / dystopia > origin stories:

Web: Addams

Herland: Further discussion? How explain, defend as feminist or women's utopia? 5.78

> Anthem: Background: As literary genre, Anthem is not a utopia but a dystopia, but genres remain co-dependent.

Discussion Questions:  1. compare / contrast Anthem to utopian texts. How are utopias & dystopias co-dependent for identity?

2. What automatic appeals or "readability" do dystopian texts enjoy over utopian texts, at least for a modern or American audience? (e.g. romance narrative)

3. While Rand's status in the literary canon is controversial, Anthem offers some strong if limited literary appeals. How may we characterize Rand's style? What appeals to fundamentalist freemarket capitalism +- evangelicalism?

4. What do utopian texts scant or blur that Rand emphasizes and develops? What consciousness does she demonstrate of utopian texts and structures? (Obviously she despises them, but her text shows occasional knowledge of utopian forms.) 1.28

5. Resemblance to other early-mid 20c dystopias or satirical utopias like Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies? What resemblances or differences relative to teen dystopias, zombie apocalypse, etc.?

Agenda:

Web: Jan

Literature of Ideas

discussion: Joe

Web: Lori

Discussion Questions:

1. Conclusion to Anthem: does it expose some upsides to utopia?

2. How does Prometheus's new home resemble modern suburbia or exurbia? How would you like Prometheus for a neighbor? Can "planned communities" be related to utopias or intentional communities? (Obj. 3b)

3. Among many ideological issues raised by Rand's writing, what do you make of a woman writer who exalts patriarchy? How rationalize “I” always being “he”? Is Golden One / Gaea a real character or more like a mythic symbol? Since Anthem is a woman-authored text, how deal with masculine privilege and womanly devotion? Is "Man" for humanity a period-style, or does it really mean man? (Compare and contrast Herland.)

3a. Continue discussion of Rand's style and its potential appeals (or demerits). Suggestions: biblical-scriptural, mythical, superlatives / extremes?

4. Why do Americans and American schools emphasize dystopias or satirical utopias? What literary and ideological appeals?)

Agenda: research posts review / midterm / assignments

web: Michaela

Ecotopia: Russ

60s-70s utopia

Discussion Questions: 1. How does Ecotopia immediately connect to our other utopian texts as a representative of the genre?

2. How to define the literary genre of “utopias?” What conventions repeatedly appear? What audiences are involved or excluded?

3. What genres join with or branch from utopia? Examples: dystopia, ecotopia, Socratic dialogue, science fiction, fantasy, novel / romance, adventure / travel narrative, journalism, tract, propaganda, satire. Others?

4. In the entertainment / instruction balance, how well does Ecotopia work as entertaining fiction as opposed to didactic literature?

Model Assignment highlights (midterm essays):   (instructor will do web highlights)

Agenda:

Assignments, midterm

web: Russ

Ecotopia discussion: Mel

Discussion Questions: 1. Standard features / conventions of utopian / dystopian literature: Everyone responsible for identifying one utopian convention (or variation) in Ecotopia, or #2 below.

2. Re obj. 1 on hybrid novel / tract, how well does Ecotopia use both genres? Compare to earlier utopian texts for character, sexuality, narrative-dialogue mix.

3. How is Ecotopia "dated?"—i.e., an earnest but naive expression of 60s-70s consciousness? What remains impressive? What surprises?

4. Callenbach varies the utopian narrative by combining Weston's learning about Ecotopia with sexual learning or initiation. How convincing is this use of sexuality for narrative and social structure? Does it help characterization, or is it just embarrassing and hippie?

4a. How does Weston's sexual instruction / learning resemble that of the men in Herland?

5. Observe social mores in Ecotopia, esp. its "public" nature: compare utopias' reduction or transformation of private property and private family?

Monday, 29 June

Readings: complete Ecotopia

Discussion starter(s): Joe Bernard

Agenda:

assignments, midterm:

conclude Ecotopia: Joe

final exam preview

preview Atwood: Jessica

founding documents +- utopia

Discussion Questions:

1. In the final episodes of Weston's initiation, can the Ecotopians' behavior be compared to that of a cult? What difference between a commune / intentional community and a cult?

2. How effective is the coordination of Weston's love story with Marissa and the narrative of his ideological initiation?

3. As visual description, the novel's best passages may be the competitive games as opportunity for aggression-expression, + mystical healing associated with highly sexualized society. Discuss.

4. How multicultural is Ecotopia? Or any utopia? Does the "Soul City" description seem as tacked-on to you as to me?

5. Ecotopian literature: "Ecotopian novels . .    . security, almost like 19c English novels; world is decent, satisfactory, sustaining despite some difficulties . . . . At first the stories seemed puzzlingly vapid to me. I couldn’t figure out why anybody would find them interesting . . . How come they didn't have that exciting nightmare quality? Some of them even have happy endings. . . . After a while, they seem more like life—okay to spend time with, reassuring. Come to think of it, Ecotopia itself is beginning to feel a good deal more reassuring: when I needed care, I was taken care of."

Thursday, 2 July

Readings: begin Oryx and Crake (chs. 1-2, through p. 33)

Agenda: Midterms status, assignments, schedule

O & C: questions?

presentation: Hannah Wells

[break]

Web review: Eunice

final exam

Monday, 6 July

Readings: continue Oryx and Crake (through ch. 6, p. 144) + “In Utopia”: Modern-day adventures in utopian living. interview of J. C. Hallman, author of In Utopia, 15 August 2010 (The Big Sort )

Discussion starter(s): Jessica Myers  (concentrate on obj. 1b? Other topics, questions welcome)

Agenda: midterms & finals

Web: Umaymah

begin discussion: Jessica

break + evaluations

continue discussion: Jessica?

African American utopias / dystopias

Oryx

Discussion Questions for 6, 7 July:

1. Genre(s): As the novel opens, what genre or genres appear operative? (Obj. 1: speculative fiction, science fiction, utopia / dystopia, satire?) How does Oryx & Crake immediately indicate it is a novel  and not merely another precise specimen of utopian fiction? As a novel, how much is any utopian or dystopian passage rendered ironical by the presence of differing passages or voices? (cf. Bakhtin on dialogic of novel)

• How does speculative fiction either distinguish itself from or hybridize with other genres? What advantages or points-of-diminishing-returns for classifying genres or introducing new genre labels like "speculative fiction?"

• Identify potential conventions of utopian fiction.

2. Style: For a serious writer who is widely respected in the higher education curriculum, Atwood's prose style is surprisingly accessible or readable. How does her writing reconcile being intellectually challenging but fluent and compelling to a wider audience? If a partial answer is her novels' socio-political relevance, how does Atwood's writing avoid automatic categorization as ideology or propaganda? Consider literary features, e.g., intertextuality, allusion, metaphor, or the Bakhtinian dialogic.

• Contrast with formulaic style of popular science fiction. How does Atwood create a compelling character like Jimmy / Snowman or Crake (and maybe Oryx) instead of stock stereotypes (e.g., in science fiction, "the competent man," exotic damsels). Is the intelligence of Jimmy's character consistent enough to be realistic?

• Atwood frequently resorts to olfactory or smell images. Relate to humans as mammals, or other purposes?

3. Content: How does Atwood criticize corporate capitalism realistically instead of hysterically? (Too direct a criticism of the natural order marginalizes voice, + novel ironizes even criticism.)

4. Religion in fiction may appear less as a supreme voice than as one of many voices or worldviews whose interplay generates creation of a social world. How does religion (or the "sacrilege" of "playing God" through bio-engineering) appear in the novel, with what degree of authority?

Tuesday, 7 July: 

Readings: Oryx and Crake complete?

Presentation on Oryx and Crake as speculative fiction and as part of MaddAddam trilogy (Oryx and Crake, 2003; The Year of the Flood, 2009; MaddAddam, 2013): Hannah Wells

Instructor's Presentation: Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash (1992); Dennis Danvers's Circuit of Heaven (1998); Dave Eggers, The Circle (2013)

Agenda: midterms, research post, final exam updates

Virtual Utopias

discussion: Jessica

Hannah: Year of the Flood, MaddAddam

text

historical period

historical tradition /
economic trend