ENGL1741 · Complex Problems and Enduring Questions

Utopian Imaginings: Literary Texts

Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences

This is an Enduring Question course and open to FRESHMEN only. You must take both ENGL1741 and UNAS1736. How do we create a just society? Utopia, a word derived from Greek and literally translating to no place, has, since the sixteenth century, come to mean an ideal, perfect society. While utopias thus may seem to exist only as imaginary spaces, separatist groups throughout history have experimented with turning them into realities, communalizing land and resources. In these paired courses, students will examine the contexts, motivating ideologies, and social structures of a series of these attempts as well as literary texts that spawned and responded to them. Following reflection on the successes and failures of these endeavors as ways of life, social experimentation, and lasting legacies, students will exercise collective imagination in envisioning a just and hopeful future by designing their own utopian communities.