Utopian Ideas and Practice Since 1500

Catalog description

This course is a history of past futures: what people imagined would, could, or should happen once humanity overcomes all social ills and superstition. Utopian ideas and projects have varied greatly across the past five centuries of European and American history, as we will see. We will compare them according to specific criteria (who could join?), and more broadly, by the societies that inspired them. The course moves from early modern Christian utopians (Heavens on Earth), to peaceful, secular groups in the nineteenth century (Liberty vs. Equality), to the twentieth century’s “age of extremes” (Secular Millenarians). Texts and films range from comedy (Thomas More’s 1516 ur-text, Utopia) to societies that we today regard as dystopias (the USSR). The course is asynchronous, but for a handful of zoom discussions with the professor, and recorded discussions with group members.