CO4034 Utopia: Past, Present, Future

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Module description

This module will introduce students to the long history of Utopian writing in theory and fiction. Students will read and critically engage with a historically broad, intercultural, and formally diverse range of Utopian texts, from proto-Utopian Ancient Greek philosophical writing, the foundational works of early-modern Utopianism, and contemporary forms of Utopian science-fiction. We will explore the different kinds of political community and ideality imagined by these texts (islands, cities, communal forms of living, etc.) and critically engage with the way the forms, discourses, and genres of Utopian writing theorise political and social ideality. Working across historical contexts, languages, cultures, as well as forms and theoretical approaches, students will explore these issues comparatively, drawing out the continuities and fractures in Utopian writing across time and space.

Intended learning outcomes

• Understand and critically examine some of the key works in the history of Utopian writing across several cultures and time
• Discuss and interpret a general history of Utopian writing, its reception in Europe and the way it informs political, historical, cultural change
• Interpret and critically assess the different kinds Utopian idealities in literature and elsewhere, as well as the way in which these are constructed discursively
• Employ several critical and theoretical approaches to Utopian writing and to apply at least one of these
• Trace and evaluate the way Utopian (or anti-Utopian) discourse and assumptions pervade contemporary political imagination as well as our everyday lives, relations, and ways of being in the world
• Use critical, discursive, and theoretical skills in the areas of research, textual analysis and interpretation, and communication, both oral and written