Utopian Fiction for Optimists, Dreamers, Revolutionaries and Skeptics - Einzelansicht

This course will introduce participants to the utopian genre, to fiction that served authors to plan and discuss wholesale outlines for a better state (or even: world) order.

Participants will read excerpts from texts from the 16th to the 20th century. We will engage with questions such as:

what is a utopia?
is planning a better society a useful endeavor? Why was the utopian genre 'en vogue' in different historical periods?
how are utopianism and colonialism related?
aren't dystopias more realistic and thus more useful to society?
Why did 1984 reappear as a bestseller when Trump was elected?

This course will be held 'life' and physically present (hopefully mentally present as well) on a biweekly basis; every other week, the students will asynchronically work through provided materials and preparations for the discussions held in the meetings. This format allows for more intense discussions and to ease the 'frontal' teaching segments, but also requires of the students to work more independently in the off weeks.

Meetings will be held on the following dates

April 29

May 12

May 26 NO CLASS DUE TO HOLIDAY; EXTENDED ONLINE SEGMENT

June 9

June 23

July 7

July 21

Preliminary reading list (these will be excerpts)

16th century: Thomas More, Utopia

17th century: Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels

19th century: Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward; Pauline Hopkins, Of One Blood

20th century: Aldous Huxley, Brave New World; George Orwell, 1984; Ernest Callenbach, Ecotopia; Octavia Bulter, Parabel of the Talents

Students will prepare materials on which their fellow participants will be asked to submit a peer review. Both, academic and didactic merit of these presentations will be evaluated.