Course Proposal: Duke TIP East Campus
Big Brother Is Watching: Dystopian Literature of the Twentieth Century
Instructor: Robert Martinez
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Big Brother Is Watching: Dystopian Literature of the Twentieth Century
Course Proposal for Duke University TIP East Campus
Summer 2007
Instructor: Mr. Robert Martinez
Required Texts & Materials
 Elie Wiesel’s Night
 George Orwell, 1984
 Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
 Robert McLiam Wilson, Eureka Street
 College-ruled notebook, folder with pockets, floppy disks, and CD-RWs
(writeable/rewriteable CDs).
Possible Film Screenings
The Nazi Officer’s Wife (A&E documentary on the life of Edith Hahn, Holocaust survivor)
Roman Polanski’s The Pianist (2002)
Francois Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989)
Ken Loach’s Hidden Agenda (1990)
Course Description
In this course, students will explore the worlds of dystopian literature. The course will begin with
a discussion of the dystopian model of fiction in general—its tendency toward envisioning
oppressive societies and regimes—and students will reflect on why writers create such alternative
models of the world. We will also explore more deeply just what the term “dystopian” means,
and how it applies to other forms of art: painting, sculpture, popular music, and film. We will
read and study two widely known and central novels of the dystopia, George Orwell’s 1984 and
Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. We will then challenge our perceived models of dystopian
fiction by reading Robert McLiam Wilson’s Eureka Street, a novel about life in the contemporary
Irish city of Belfast. We will examine a variety of literary techniques in each novel (e.g., the use
of metaphor, symbol, language, moral fable, and general novel structure) and will consider how
these techniques help us understand issues of identity, self-development, social problems,
struggles of the individual against society, and larger theoretical questions concerning genre.
To assist our investigations into these novels, students will learn about and research different
historical moments of the twentieth century that profoundly influenced the creation of literary
dystopias. We will open our historical inquiry by studying the life of Edith Hahn, a Jewish
woman who survived life in Nazi Germany by marrying a Nazi officer; we will then read Elie
Wiesel’s memoir of the Holocaust, Night. In particular, we will study the rise of Nazism during
World War II, the spread of communism under Stalin (Soviet Union) and Mao (China), the
development of the “Red Scare” and McCarthyism in the United States, the African-American
response to Civil Rights issues in the U.S., and the rise of feminism and its reaction to patriarchy
in the late twentieth century. Students will analyze these historical conditions and discuss their
influences upon the novels. Students will also learn how to analyze visual representations of the
dystopia by examining artistic works of twentieth-century painters.
Course Proposal: Duke TIP East Campus
Big Brother Is Watching: Dystopian Literature of the Twentieth Century
Instructor: Robert Martinez
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Activities and Assignments
This course is reading and writing intensive. Daily class sessions will involve reflective journal
writing, critical reading, analytical discussion, library research and presentations, workshops on
creative and scholarly writing, film analysis, and guest lectures by professional scholars.
An in-class essay test will be given on each of the novels. Students will also be required to
complete and turn in a final project at the end of the course. They will have two options for the
final project: (1) Students may write a scholarly paper on one or more of the novels studied in the
class, or (2) they may write a short story, play, or film script that creates and examines a dystopia
of their own making.
Tentative Course Syllabus for “Big Brother Is Watching”
Week 1
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Week 2
Introductions: Getting to Know the Course and the Class
What Is the Dystopia?
Experiencing the Dystopia: Historical and Cultural Background
 Case Study: Nazi Germany
Documentary, The Nazi Officer’s Wife
Possible screening of Polanski’s The Pianist
Groupwork and Discussion
Reading: Elie Wiesel’s Night
Wiesel’s Night and Discussion
Library Tour
Historical Projects: Assign groups case studies on historical/cultural dystopias
(Stalinism and the “Red Scare,” Mao’s China, Feminism and Patriarchy,
Northern Ireland and the Troubles)
Meeting Big Brother: Begin Orwell’s 1984
Reading and Discussion of 1984
Lesson: How to Talk (and write!) about Literature
Reading
Activities: Dramatizing the text with your group
Journal writing: Reflecting on 1984
Continue Reading and Discussion of 1984
Activities: Are We in 1984? Analyzing your world
Writing your own dystopia: Creative writing
Dystopia and the Importance of Language: Orwell’s “Politics and the English
Language”
Review discussion for examination
Library Research: Groupwork on historical projects
Music unit: Post-punk movement in Britain as critique of socio-economic
conditions
Essay Examination on 1984
Course Proposal: Duke TIP East Campus
Big Brother Is Watching: Dystopian Literature of the Twentieth Century
Instructor: Robert Martinez
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Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Group Presentation: Historical Dystopias
 Case Study: Stalin, Mao, and the Rise of Communism
Begin Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451
“It will only make you sad, so just burn it!”: Opening Discussion of Bradbury
and Fahrenheit 451
Journals: Reflective writing
Reading
Discussion: Media saturation, Thought control, and Reading as “Self-defense”
Journal writing
Continue reading Fahrenheit 451
Group Presentation and Discussion: Historical Dystopias
 Case Study: The “Red Scare” and McCarthyism
Music Unit: American Punk: Dead Kennedys and Political Justice in Music
Conclude reading of Fahrenheit 451
The Problem of Ireland: Irish Culture & the Troubles; begin reading McLiam
Wilson’s Eureka Street.
Visual Dystopias: Representations of Dystopias in Art
Reading and discussion of Eureka Street
Project writing work
Dystopias and the African-American Experience: Spike Lee’s Do the Right
Thing
Watch film and discuss
Week 3
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Group Presentation: Historical Dystopias
 Case Study: Feminism and Patriarchy
Feminism in visual art lesson
Continue reading and discussion of Eureka Street
Continue reading Eureka Street
Group discussion: realism as a tool in dystopian fiction
Reading session
Conclude Eureka Street
Reflective writing in journal
Discussion
Final group work sessions on final projects
Present group projects
Discussion
Final music unit: Riot Grrrl movement
Ireland on film: watch and discuss Hidden Agenda
Finish presentation of group projects
Conclude course
Parent conferences.