| Lerninhalte |
Literature has been used for thinking about alternative worlds and futures since its beginnings. In this class we will look at American speculative literature – not classical philosophical utopian treatises nor modern techno dystopias but rather texts that think about utopian alternatives to their relative presents. While critiquing the social conditions under corporate capitalism, they imagine alternative forms of social interaction and relations to the environment. We will interrogate these works – separated from one another by up to more than a century – as to what they have to say about social and environmental sustainability and degradation, sufficiency, equality, and climate change – in short, questions which the present global situation forces upon us.
Students are required to purchase a Reader (Copy&Paste), as well as the following texts:
- Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward (1888). Penguin, 1982. ISBN 0140390189
- Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland (1915). Vintage, 2015. ISBN 1784870528
- Ursula, Le Guin, The Dispossessed (1974). Harper Voyager, 1994. ISBN 0061054887
- Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future (2020). Orbit, 2021. ISBN 0356508862
|
