UTOPIAS AND DYSTOPIAS IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE (JPB163)

COURSE SYLLABUS

Aims and purpose

The primary aim of this course is to introduce the students to the study of the development of the specific genre of political utopias (as well as dystopias) both in political philosophy and in literature. Participation in the seminar should also improve students’ analytical and argumentative skills.

This course uses a combination of lectures and seminars. The students will be expected to have read the assigned reading before the class so that they can participate in the discussion.

Schedule of Classes

1. Introduction, course overview.

2. Plato’s Republic as the first utopia.

3. The Assembly of Women as an early satirical dystopia.

4. Virtuous Utopia versus Corrupt England? The irony of More’s Utopia.

5. The New Atlantis: Francis Bacon’s vision of society governed by science and technology.

6. Swift’s utopian satire: Gulliver’s Travels.

7. Utopian socialism I (R. Owen).

8. Utopian socialism II (C. Fourier).

9. Y. Zamyatin’s We: A Bolshevism inspired social dystopia.

10. Big Brother is Watching you: Orwell’s vision of dystopian future.

11. A. Huxley: Orgy-Porgy – another kind of late modern social dystopia.

12. In the Matrix of virtual reality.