What is a “perfect” world and what does it mean to try to create one in fiction or film? Why do we find stories about alternative worlds so very compelling? What satisfaction do we get from writing and reading about either visions of perfection or nightmarish alternative worlds worse than our own? How are these worlds both a product of and a reflection on our own modern world?
This course will consider the particular, peculiar resonance that utopian and dystopian visions hold for us. Throughout the course, we will explore utopia and dystopia in fiction, film, and popular culture. We will look at dystopias that function as warning tales and as patterns of expectation for a dark, human future. We will analyse social, technological, scientific, and environmental utopias and dystopias from both the right and the left political wings. Such visions of perfect and imperfect worlds, we will discover, tell us something about the state that we are in and the state of things to come. They are fictional works that pack a psychological and a political punch, for they share a fascination with the very nature of being human and maintaining an individual identity in a frightening, changing society.
- Teacher: TST Faculty Alex Peat