LIT152 CM - Utopia/Dystopia: The Political Imagination in Literature and Film

Utopia is a literary genre that attempts to imagine how human societies can be reformed to eliminate violence, irrationality, waste, and chaos. Utopias attempt, in other words, to eliminate everything that makes literature-and life-interesting. Is that why utopia so often leads to dystopia? In this course, we will follow utopian and dystopian thinking and writing from classical times into the late twentieth century. Works will include More’s Utopia, New Atlantis, Gulliver’s Travels, Candide, Looking Backward, Brave New World, 1984, A Clockwork Orange (book and film), The Handmaid’s Tale, and The Matrix (film).

Offered: Every other year

Credit: 1

Course Number: LIT 152 CM