LITR 5737 Literary & Historical Utopias

Tuesday, 14 June: Anthem

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

Cindy and Gordon, if you need more time for your midterm, just let me know--we can reschedule that, but not your presentations.

Texts available as handouts + web postings

homepage > research links

Tuesday will be tough since the midterm will have just happened + one night till next class meeting

Reading and class expectations . . .

Reading: try to at least look over everything. Some of it is already familiar.

Try to connect to course objectives and to other course texts.

Attitude: These are big classic texts that we could never finish anyway, so our goal is broadly to acknowledge how they fit into utopian studies

Instructor will lead discussion but invite comments on objectives or connections.

If no comments, instructor will highlight some passages.

Why do utopias often involve millennial narratives?

2d. How essential is “millennialism” (apocalyptic or end-time narrative) to the utopian narrative?

48 legends of the great fighting, fire called the Dawn of the Great Rebirth, was the Script Fire where all the scripts of the Evil Ones were burned

[contrast interest of utopias in difference]

Discuss Anthem:

Why do American public school curricula consistently offer counter-utopian texts instead of utopias? Examples: Anthem, Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies

Conclusion to Anthem: does it expose the upsides of utopia?

What do the utopias overlook or blur that Rand develops?

In terms of the story-telling problems in our earlier utopias, how does Anthem differ? As a successful story, what's it got that the other novels don't?

Rand, Anthem (1938)

Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1932)

George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1948)

George Orwell, Animal Farm (1945)

William Golding, Lord of the Flies (1954)

resurgence of utopian activity and fiction in 1960s-70s

Callenbach, Ecotopia (1975)

Woman on the Edge of Time

The Dispossessed

Anthem notes:

pronoun issues:

22-3 [confusion raised by “we”—sense of group rising > solitary rejection]

59 We made it. We created it. We brought it forth from the night of the ages. We alone. Our hands. Our mind. Ours alone and only. [Objectivist union of human nature and devotion. How would phrase change with “My?”]

94 I am. I think. I will. My hands . . . This earth of mine . . . These are the words. This is the answer

these dualities or oppositions:

Situation / hypothesis: At the end of Anthem, Prometheus and Golden One establish a separate household in a private home with lots of security devices and plans for procreation.

Question: Can we think of the private family as a utopian unit? How much do we do so already? What prevails against thinking of the private family as utopia?

What's utopian or counter-utopian about Prometheus's scene at the end?

3a.To investigate historical, nonfiction attempts by “communes,” “intentional communities,” or even nations to put utopian ideals into practice.

Admittedly, all utopian communities eventually fail (or at least submerge), but how to get beyond “They don’t work” as a discussion-stopper? (For instance, even if all utopias fail, that doesn’t stop people from imagining or attempting utopias.)

expand the realm of thinkable

the possible won't be exactly same as thinkable

but loosens human development from present and from chains of "human nature"

dialectic: utopian impulse forces questions of ideal human society

1c. Can utopias join science fiction, speculative fiction, and allied genres in constituting a “literature of ideas?”

Sounds cool, but needs a less dreamy sound

How about this:

As one utopian alternative to the negative polarization of politics, the classroom can serve positive political purposes by promoting or modeling the exploration and free exchange of ideas through subjects like utopias and associated genres.

For instance, a naive course in utopian literature or utopian studies could be criticized for indoctrinating students in socialist thinking or for undermining the private family and questioning private property.

But inclusion of dissents from literature and participants can compel socialists / liberals and capitalists / conservatives to grant at least a limited validity to each other's ideas.

Expands the range of values, choices--instead of either-or, possibilities of both-and.

Notes from previous semesters 

Discussion topics for Genesis & Revelation

What is the relationship of the Apocalypse in Revelation to the earlier utopia of Eden and the later utopia of Heaven?

What exactly is utopian about Eden? How much does it begin to appear utopian upon its loss?

What is dystopian about the world of Revelation? What is utopian about heaven? How much is revealed of either?

(Issues of coding in apocalyptic narratives: symbols, allegories, etc.)

Does "Man" = "all people" or does it really mean just men?

In Anthem, humanity is referred to as "man," "mankind," "brothers"

100 Gaea pregnant with my child. Our son will be raised as a man.

101 To be free, a man must be free of his brothers.

101 a man has rights which neither god nor king nor other men can take away from him

104 spirit of man sleeps, awakens

partly period usage, pre-inclusive language

but may also reflect patriarchal nature of society

complication: woman author

issues of political correctness

p. 62 Herland