LITR 5737: Literary & Historical Utopias

UHCL, summer 2007, 1^st 5-wks session, M, T, Th 3-6pm

Instructor: Craig White.      Phone: 281 283 3380.       Email: whitec@uhcl.edu

Office Hours: Mondays & Thursdays, 12-1, 6-6:30, and by appointment

Course webpage: http://coursesite.cl.uh.edu/HSH/Whitec/LITR/5737

Reading, meeting, and presentation schedule

Tuesday, 29 May: introduction with visit from previous LITR 5737 student Matt Mayo

Thursday, 31 May: Utopia

Discussion starter for Book 1, pp. 1-27; Book 2, pp. 28-57: Kristen Bird

Web review: Thomas More sites on course webpage: Amy Braselton

Monday, 4 June: conclude Utopia; begin Looking Backward (chapters 1-4; handout on historical impact)

Discussion-starter: Gordon Lewis

Historical presentation: Utopian movements of the Renaissance: Fran Baines

Tuesday, 5 June: Looking Backward (complete)

Discussion-starter: Donny L. Leveston

Historical Presentation: Liz Davis: Christianopolis

Thursday, 7 June: begin Herland (through chapter 6--through p. 72 in Pantheon edition)

Discussion-starter: Fran Baines

Historical presentation: Oneida community / corporation—Tish Wallace

Web review: Charlotte Perkins Gilman sites on course webpage: Yvonne Hopkins

Monday, 11 June: conclude Herland

Historical presentation: Jo Lynn Sallee: Twin Oaks

Discussion-starter: Brouke M. Rose-Carpenter

Web review: Ayn Rand sites on course webpage: Donny Wankan

Tuesday, 12 June: Anthem

Historical presentation: Brouke M. Rose-Carpenter (feminist utopias)

Discussion-starter: Tish Wallace

Thursday, 14 June: Anthem

Historical presentation: Amy Braselton: Islamic utopias or utopias gone too far

Roundtable discussion on midterms

Monday, 18 June: midterm

Tuesday, 19 June: selections from Genesis & Revelation; the Book of Acts; Plato’s Republic; American founding documents

Historical presentation: Heaven as utopia?—Cindy Goodson

Preview of Dr. King’s Dream Speech: Liz Davis

Historical presentation +- Web review: Kibbutzim of Israel: Gordon Lewis

Thursday, 21 June: alternative or multicultural utopias: selections from African American slave narratives; Dr. King’s Dream Speech; speech by Chief Seattle;

Historical presentation: Donny L. Leveston (open choice)

Discussion-starter: Carlos Castillo

Web review: Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh-Day Adventists: Carmen Ashby

Monday, 25 June: begin Ecotopia

Historical presentation: sixties utopian movements—Ruth Pilarte

Historical presentation +- web review: Auroville: Carlos Castillo

Tuesday, 26 June: Instructor leads with page samples from Toni Morrison’s Paradise (African American novel with utopian themes) and two virtual-reality novels with utopian themes (Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash [1992] and Dennis Danvers’s Circuit of Heaven [1998])

Historical presentation: virtual utopias or Rainbow Gatherings: Donny Wankan

Web review: Ernest Callenbach sites on course webpage: Ruth Pilarte

Thursday, 28 June: conclude Ecotopia

Discussion-starter: Cindy Goodson

Historical presentation: Amish community / lifestyle: Kristen Bird

Historical presentation: New Urbanism: Yvonne Hopkins

Monday, 2 July: final exam due by Tuesday, 3 July at noon.