Utopias and Visions of the Future: Călin Mihăilescu

Utopias and Visions of the Future

CLC 110F, fall 2007, Talbot College rm. 201

Lectures: Tuesday 1:30—3:30

Tutorials and shorter lectures: Thursday 1:30—2:30

Instructor: Călin Mihăilescu (cmihails@uwo.ca; tel. 661-2111 ext. 85862)

Teaching Assistant: Adrian Mioc (amioc@uwo.ca)

Office Hours: UC 361 Tue. 10:30-1:30 (or by appointment)

Course Description

In this course, students will explore visions of the “best place” and “worst place” through a diverse selection of texts from antiquity to the twentieth-century, including works of literature, philosophy, political science, and religion. Such imaginative places often involve intricate proposals for political reform, on one hand, and fantastic experiments in social engineering, on the other. We will examine how utopias are constructed and investigate what purposes they serve in the “real” societies that produce them. Key texts include Genesis, Plato’s Republic, More’s Utopia, Voltaire’s Candide, Zamyatin’s We, Orwell’s 1984, Voinovich’s Moscow 2042, and Vargas Llosa’s The Way to Paradise.

Syllabus

Sept 6 Introduction: What is Utopia, and where is it?

A. Philosophy of the City

Sept 11 Plato, Republic, Books 2-5 (357a-476e), 7 (514a-519d; 531d-535a), 9 (571a-583b; 10 (595a-601c); on one-day reserve shelf at Weldon

Sept 13 Tutorial Plato

B. Beginnings and Endings

Sept 18 Code of Hammurabi (online) http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/CODE.HTM (read it all and get used to old, foreign laws)

Hesiod, Works and Days (online) http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/hesiod/works.htm (from (ll. 109-120) “First of all the deathless gods who dwell on Olympus…” to (ll. 170-201) “and bitter sorrows will be left for mortal men, and there will be no help against evil.”

Torah/Bible: Genesis: 1-11:9 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=genesis%201-11:9;&version=50;

Sept 20 Tutorial

Sept 25 Exodus: 1-6:13, 7:1-14:31, 19:1-20:21, 31:18-32:35

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=exodus%201-20;&version=50;

Deuteronomy: 5:1-8:20, 15:1-19:21, 21:10-26:19

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=deuteronomy%205-25;&version=50;

Sept 27 Tutorial: The Old and New Testaments

Supplementary readings:

New Testament: Romans: 3:21-5:21

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=romans%203-5;&version=50;

Qur’an, sura 2:21-39 (online) http://www.al-islam.org/quran/

Oct 2 Revelation, chapters 1, 4-22

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=revelation%201;&version=50;

Qur’an, suras 56, 75 (online) http://www.al-islam.org/quran/

Oct 4 Tutorial

Oct 9 Augustine, City of God (online) http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf102.iv.html

Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies, book 1; on one-day reserve shelf at Weldon

Oct 11 Tutorial

C. Eutopias

Oct 16 Thomas More, Utopia

Oct 16 First Paper Due

Oct 18 Tutorial

Supplementary readings:

Rabelais, “Abbey of Thélème” (excerpts) http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/rabelais.html

Bacon, The New Atlantis (excerpts) http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext00/nwatl11h.htm

Campanella, City of the Sun (excerpts) http://www.levity.com/alchemy/citysun.html

Oct 23 Fourier, selections from the Utopian Vision of Charles Fourier (London: Cape, 1971), pages 79-93 & 233-256; on one-day reserve shelf at Weldon

Marx and Engels, Communist Manifesto (online)

http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html

Oct 25 Vargas Llosa, The Way to Paradise

Oct 30 Vargas Llosa, The Way to Paradise

D. Dystopias

Nov 1 Voltaire, Candide

Supplementary reading:

Rousseau, Discourse on the Origins of Inequality (online)

http://www.constitution.org/jjr/ineq_01.htm

Nov 6 Voltaire; Dostoevsky, “The Grand Inquisitor” from The Brothers Karamazov (Part Two, Book 5, ch. 5); on one-day reserve shelf at Weldon

Nov 8 Tutorial

Nov 13 Zamyatin, We

Nov 15 Tutorial: Zamyatin

Nov 20 Orwell, 1984

Nov 22 Tutorial: Orwell

Nov 27 Voinovich, Moscow 2042

Nov 29 Tutorial: Voinovich

Dec 4 Closing remarks: the contemporary fate of utopianism

Dec 4 Final Paper due

Course Requirements

A. Class Participation (20%)

As part of the grade for participation, students are expected to participate in class discussions.

Notes on attendance: Attendance will be taken at the beginning of each class. If you have a legitimate reason to miss class (sickness, family crisis, religious holiday), please contact me beforehand so that we can arrange for you to make up any missed material. Missed classes and/or lack of class participation can add up and adversely affect your class participation grade.

B. Papers (50%)

First paper (20%): 3-4 pages

Topics will be handed out two weeks before the due date.

Second paper (30%): 6-8 pages

The second paper is to be written on a topic of your choice. All students are expected to have their topics approved during office hours. It would be a good idea to begin thinking about the final paper as early as possible in the semester.

C. Final Exam (30%)

The final exam will consist of essay questions and quote identifications based on assigned readings.

Required Texts

Thomas More, Utopia (Dover)

Voltaire, Candide (Penguin)

Yevgeny Zamyatin, We (Modern Library)

George Orwell, 1984 (York: Harcourt)

Vladimir Voinovich, Moscow 2042 (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich)

Mario Vargas Llosa, The Way to Paradise: A Novel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Books on one-day reserve at Weldon:

Plato, Republic

Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies, book 1

Charles Fourier, selections from the Utopian Vision of Charles Fourier (London: Cape, 1971), pages 79-93 & 233-256

Fyodor Dostoevsky, “The Grand Inquisitor” (from The Brothers Karamazov) (Part Two, Book 5, ch. 5).

Recommended Texts

Bible (New Revised Standard Version)

Marx and Engels, Communist Manifesto (Penguin)

Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (Hackett)