Hist 321/490
Utopia and Dystopia in Europe and North America
Prof. Eagle Glassheim
Office: 1203 Buchanan Tower
Office Hours: Tues. 10-12 and by appointment
E-mail: eagle.g@ubc.ca
Course Description:
This seminar will look at three different approaches to utopia: utopia as social criticism, utopia as
blueprint for an ideal society, and dystopia (anti-utopia) as ominous warning. As far as we can tell,
humankind has always imagined ideal worlds. But conceptions of the ideal future also reflect the
imperfections of the present; utopias (and dystopias) can thus serve as mirrors of the times in which they
are written. In the beginning, we will read Sir Thomas More’s Utopia for social context, to approach it as
a historical document. From there, we will examine utopia as a literary and historical trope, surveying
utopian ideals and ideology in modern Europe and North America. We will then turn to attempts to
create communal utopias in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, to utopia in practice. These will range
from transcendentalist experiments like Brook Farm to religious sects like the Mormons and Doukhobors
to hippy communes in the 1960s. Next we’ll look at the social and racial utopias of Communism and
Nazism. The last portion of the course will explore dystopian visions in literature and film. After the
mechanized carnage of the First World War and the social cleansing of the Russian Revolution, a wave of
anti-utopias appeared, projecting a darkened view of technological and ideological perfection. We’ll
conclude with the question “whither utopia”? Is our post-ideological order in the West a post-utopian
order?
Required Texts:
Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward (Broadview Press, 2003).
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland (Penguin Classics, 1999).
Karl Marx, Communist Manifesto (Penguin Classics, 2002).
Thomas More, Utopia (Penguin Classics, 2003).
B.F. Skinner, Walden II (Hackett: 2005).
Yevgeny Zamyatin, We (Modern Library, 2006).
Readings marked with an asterisk (*) are part of the course reading pack, available on WebCt and on
reserve in Koerner Library.
Course Requirements:
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Approximately 150-200 pages of reading per week
Required weekly discussions and written discussion responses (3 graded over the semester)
One research paper (10-15 pgs) or project (including 4-5 pg “contextualization”), due on Dec. 13
Honours students must complete an additional three “context” papers of 2-3 pages
Schedule
Week 1
Introductions (Sept. 7)
Readings: Handouts in Class
Week 2
Utopia (Sept. 14)
Readings: More, Utopia
Week 3
New World(s): Puritans, Mormons, Doukhobors (Sept. 21)
Readings: *Simpson, 19-38; *Bushman, 1-57; *Campbell, 1-22; *Donskov, 13-34;
*Woodcock/Avakumovic, 9-23
Week 4
Social Justice and Control (Sept. 28)
Readings: Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward
Week 5
Utopian Communities: Owenites, Transcendentalists, and Hippies (Oct 5)
Readings: *Manuel, 676-693; *Online sources on Brook Farm and Fruitlands; *Alcott, Transcendental
Wild Oats; *The Modern Utopian, 102-147
Week 6
Feminist Utopias (Oct. 12)
Readings: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland
Week 7
Communism (Oct. 19)
Readings: Marx, Communist Manifesto; *Lenin, State and Revolution, 75-92; *Mlynar 1-6
Week 8
Technical/Rationalized Utopias (Oct. 26)
Readings: Skinner, Walden II
Week 9
Technical/Rationalized Dystopias (Nov. 2)
Readings: Zamiatin, We
Week 10
Designing the Perfect City (Nov 9)
Readings: *Hall, 218-261; *Scott, Seeing Like a State, 87-146; *Le Corbusier 18-35, 90-155;
Week 11
(No class on Nov. 16)
Replace with trip to Vancouver Art Gallery for exhibition, “75 YEARS OF COLLECTING: THE ROAD
TO UTOPIA”
Week 12
Eugenics/National Socialism (Nov 23)
Readings: *Friedlander, 1-22; *Burleigh & Wippermann, 23-43; *Hitler, Mein Kampf (Nation and Race
Chapter); *Bauman, 61-82
Week 13
Post-Utopianism? (Nov. 30)
Readings: *Harvey, 4-98
Extra Readings (marked with *, available on WebCT)
1. Alan Simpson, Puritanism in Old and New England (University of Chicago Press, 1955), 19-38.
2. Claudia Lauper Bushman and Richard Lyman Bushman, Building the Kingdom: A History of
Mormons in America (Oxford University Press, 2001), 1-57.
3. Craig S. Campbell, Images of the New Jerusalem (The University of Tennessee Press, 2004), 1-22.
4. Andrew Donskov, Leo Tolstoy and the Canadian Doukhobors (Centre for Research on CanadianRussian Relations, 2005), 13-34.
5. George Woodcock and Ivan Avakumovic, The Doukhobors (Oxford University Press, 1968), 9-23.
6. Frank Manuel and Fritzie Manuel, Utopian Thought in the Western World (Belknap Press, 1979),
676-693.
7. Online sources on Brook Farm and Fruitlands (see WebCT).
8. Louisa May Alcott, “Transcendental Wild Oats,” The Independent, 18 December 1873 (online at
www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/ideas/wildoats.html).
9. Richard Fairfield, ed., The Modern Utopian (Alternatives Foundation, 1972), 103-146.
10. Vladimir Lenin, The State and Revolution (Penguin, 1992 [1918]), 75-92.
11. Zdenek Mlynar, Nightfrost in Prague (Karz Publishers, 1980), 1-6.
12. Peter Geoffrey Hall, Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design in
the Twentieth Century, 3rd ed. (Blackwell Pub., 2002), 218-261.
13. James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have
Failed (Yale University Press, 1998), 87-146.
14. Le Corbusier, The Radiant City (The Orion Press, 1967 [1933]), 18-35, 90-155.
15. Henry Friedlander, The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution (University
of North Carolina Press, 1995), 1-22.
16. Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann, The Racial State: Germany, 1933-1945 (Cambridge
University Press, 1991), 23-43.
17. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, chapter on Nation and Race (vol. 1, chapt. 11). English translation online
at: http://www.mondopolitico.com/library/meinkampf/v1c11.htm
18. Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust (Cornell University Press, 1989), 61-82.
19. David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (Blackwell, 1997 [1990]), 4-98.