LITR 5737: Literary & Historical Utopias

Classical or mainstream texts related to utopian studies
(readings for Tuesday 19 June)

Classical sources on "The Golden Age"

The Creation from Genesis

The Book of Revelation (use handout)

Selections from the Book of Acts

Selections from Plato's Republic (use handout)

Utopian selections from European-American founding texts

Selections from Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1776)

Multicultural texts potentially related to utopian studies
(readings for Thursday 21 June)

Selections from Olaudah Equiano slave narrative

Selections from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845)

Selections from Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861)

Selections from Dr. King's "Dream" speech

Chief Seattle's Speech

ORGANIZATIONS & GENERAL SITES

Society for Utopian Studies

Communal Studies Association

Federation of Egalitarian Communities

Center for Millennial Studies

Intentional Communities Web Ring

Small, Local Community

Twin Oaks Intentional Community (Virginia)

Utopia: The Search for the Ideal Society in the Western World (NY Public Library)

COMMUNITARIAN MOVEMENT

Communitarian Network

Anti-Communitarian League

Amitai Etzioni (Communitarian Philosopher)

The New Urbanism and the Communitarian Trap

LITERARY COLLECTIONS OR COURSES

North American college courses on Utopian Literature, Science Fiction, and Fantasy (the earlier version of this course made the list, along with Literature of the Future)

"American Utopian Expressions" Course at UT-Arlington

Utopia and Dystopia in American Literature (Rutgers-Newark)

Utopias & Dystopias (Clemson U. SF English-Interactive Site)

Categories of Utopias & Dystopias (from Clemson site above)

"Listmania" of utopian texts at Amazon.com

Utopia: A Selected Bibliography (NY Public Library)

Feminist Science Fiction, Fantasy and Utopia

19th-Century Utopias Course (U. of Louisville)

Utopia, Apocalypse, and the Millennium (NYU)

The Millennium Cometh: Apocalypse and Utopia in Bible, Sociology, and Literature (Loyola Marymount)

NEW URBANISM

New Urbanism: Creating Living Sustainable Communities

The New Urbanism: An alternative to modern, automobile-oriented planning and development

New Urbanism Bibliography

New Urban News

Merits and Principles of New Urbanism

The New Urbanism and the Communitarian Trap

SUBURBS AS UTOPIA / DYSTOPIA

Nation article on diversifying suburbs

"Suburban Utopia?": article on diversifying suburbs and exurban white flight

First Suburbs Consortium (re mature communities)

Greg Knight's Patio Culture

Levittown: Documents of an Ideal American Suburb

"Exurb": Wikipedia Definition

"Exurbs" and "Natalism" movement (San Francisco Chronicle )

USA Today editorial on exurbs

Article on decline of working-class suburbs

"Suburbia and its Discontents"

Celebration USA (Disney planned community)

Welcome to Celebration, Florida!

Celebration: Disney's Latest Development Project

photos of Celebration

Gallery of Homes at Celebration

Review of a visit to Celebration (from American Studies project at U. of Virginia.

Analysis of Celebration (from American Studies Today Online)

USA Today article on Celebration

Kibbutzim of Israel

The Kibbutz (Jewish Virtual Library)

Kibbutzim (study of co-ops)

Institute for Research on the Kibbutz and the Collective Idea

Kibbutz in World History (interesting comments on psychological effects of propertylessness and collective child-rearing)

Kibbutz Movement (Communal Studies Association)

Auroville (India)

Auroville, a Universal City in the Making

Auroville (Sri Aurobindo Website)

Auroville (Sri Aurobindo Society)

New Harmony (Indiana)

Historic New Harmony

overview of New Harmony history

New Harmony scientists, educators, writers & artists

Evangelical communes

The Simple Way (Philadelphia; see links to "family" of related communes?)

Jehovah's Witnesses & Seventh-Day Adventists

Watchtower: Official Website of the Jehovah's Witnesses

Jehovah's Witnesses historical profile (University of Virginia)

Seventh-Day Adventist Church (Official Website)

Seventh-Day Adventist historical profile (University of Virginia)

Jonestown

Jonestown: Examining the Peoples Temple (Rice University)

Peoples Temple, Jonestown historical profile (U. of Virginia)

Jonestown: Jim Jones and the People's Temple (Rick A. Ross Project)

Amana Colonies

Amana Colonies: National Park Service website

Amana History (Amana Heritage Society)

The Community of True Inspiration (Amana religion)

Thomas More Website

Thomas More (English Renaissance Literature)

St. Thomas More Website

online copy of More's Utopia

Edward Bellamy, a 19th-Century Visionary

Edward Bellamy and the Nationalistic & Socialistic Movements

Edward Bellamy and the Pledge to the Flag

The Charlotte Perkins Gilman Society

PAL page on Perkins Gilman

C. P. Gilman and Herland

High School student review of Herland 

C. P. Gilman biography with section on utopian writings

Herland Study Guide

Online copy of Herland 

Ayn Rand Institute

Ayn Rand Society (American Philosophical Institute)

Journal of Ayn Rand Studies

Objectivist Reference Center

Ayn Rand in C-Span American Writers Series

Ayn Rand in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Ayn Rand at Internet Movie Database

Unofficial Passion of Ayn Rand Homepage

Octavia Butler bibliography (from Feminist Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Utopia)

Unofficial Octavia Butler webpage

Octavia Butler interview

Octavia Butler biographical article

Review of Ecotopia

Ecotopia entry from Wikipedia (with note on Ecotopia as one of "Nine Nations")

What is Ecotopia? (contains bibliography of other Callenbach writings)

Ecotopia at 30

Interview with Ernst Callenbach

E. F. Schumacher Society

PBS interview of Toni Morrison

Nineteenth-Century Utopias in America (National Park Service Essay)

Glenn C. Altschuler, "Apathy, Apocalypse, and the American Jeremiad." New Literary History 15.1 (2003): 162-171.

Pop Occulture blog on Apocalypse as emergence-of-self in Jungian psychology

David Spangler, "Unburdening America--Three visions of the North American story:
progress and utopia, apocalypse, and planetary culture"

Ted Daniels, Apocalypse and Millennium: A Bibliography

Ted Daniels, Introduction to Apocalypse and Millennium: A Bibliography

MLA Style Sheet

Le Guin, "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas"

Backgrounds to Le Guin's "Omelas"

Article on Las Vegas NE & Santa Fe NM as "dialectical utopias"

Hostel in the Forest (near Brunswick GA)

Summary / review of News from Nowhere (Utopian novel of 1890-91 by William Morris)

Official Mahatma Gandhi eArchive and Reference Library

reopening of Gandhi's Phoenix Ashram

Mother's Village (concerning communal relief efforts for Tsunami victims by Amma, "the hugging saint")

Mithras (mentioned as chief God in More's Utopia but also an historical deity from Middle Eastern and Hellenistic empires)

Links from 2005 student Daniel Robison

On page 58 of Herland, we learn that they worship the goddess Maaia. Below is a great web page I found on the nature of Maia, plus her role as the three faces of woman-virgin, mother, crone-similar to the role of the original parthenogenic woman-Queen, Priestess, Mother (59).

This is a really interesting site that incorporates both koinonia and utopianism.

This site gives a good discussion of the meaning of koinonia.

I found this site while looking for annus mundi. It’s interesting look at apocalyptic millennialism.

HANDOUTS & SUPPLEMENTARY TEXTS

List of literary and historical utopias, dystopias

Plato's Republic, book 2

The Golden Age

Book of Acts

Counter-Utopian Tradition?