ARTH 389ACultures of Modern Utopia

Catalog

From its invention by Thomas More in his book of 1516, utopia has occupied a peculiar ground between aesthetics and politics or, to be more precise, between fiction and action. It is on the one hand an imaginary projection onto a fictional space constituted by narrative text or image, and on the other hand a project to be carried out in the real, passing from fiction into historical experience. Addressing the history of utopian thought and its accompanying visual culture from the 16th century onward, this course will analyze the development of utopia in the cultural field and the in the political and social fields simultaneously. Fulfills AUS and post-1800 requirement for art history major or minor. Prerequisite: any ARTH 100- or 200-level course.