Utopia

Catalog description

With the publication of his Utopia, Thomas More coined the name of a new genre of literature in which the writer posits an ideal society - and sometimes an impossibly ideal society. In this course, we'll explore the sources of More's Utopia in political philosophy and its legacy in speculative, socialist, and science fiction. What do these literary experiments tell us about how society would have to be organized to be free of sexism, racism, inequality, war, and ecological ruination. Authors may include Thomas More, James Harrington, Margaret Cavendish, Daniel Defoe, William Morris, Marge Piercy, Ursula LeGuin, Toni Morrison. (ENGL-PRE)