Revolution or Reform?

Catalog description

This course explores the relation between literary and utopian Enlightenment cultures in Western history. For each moment of rapid change, from Plato to the Communist revolutions of the twentieth century and beyond, we will focus on two texts: one which promoted the enlightened and revolutionary utopian social blueprint; and one offering an alternative model of transformation or a dystopian account of the utopian model. You will come away from this course having a chronologically wide and intellectually deep immersion in 2500 years of European philosophical and literary history. Throughout, you are encouraged to think about what resources we use to imagine social transformation and to ask if revolution is in fact the best way to effect social transformation. (ENGL-PRE, HIST-HEU)