Political Science: Utopias

Exploration of human experiments in fashioning an ideal society, in theory and in practice, from antiquity to the present day. Discussion-based and culminating in student group presentations on various utopian communities of choice. By the end of this course, students will have gained new factual knowledge about political theory and practice, a new vocabulary to discuss it, and new abilities to write cogently and think critically about human social relationships. Prerequisites: POLS 1012 or POLS 1200.

Prerequisite enforced by the system: POLS 1012 or POLS 1200; Minimum Sophomore standing. PACE students with permission and override.

This course explores human experiments in fashioning an ideal society, in theory and in practice. Three base texts will inform our discussions: Plato’s foundational Republic (c. 350 BCE), the Anarchist Peter Kropotkin’s manifesto The Conquest of Bread (1892), and Simone Weil’s The Need for Roots (1949) Utopian and dystopian visions in film will also receive close attention, including, e.g., Terry Gilliam’s Brazil (1985), David Fincher’s Fight Club (1999), Bong Joon-Ho’s Snowpiercer (2013), and Peter Weir’s The Truman Show (1998). Excerpts from Friedrich Engels (Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, 1880), John Ruskin (Unto This Last, 1862), Karl Popper (The Open Society and Its Enemies, 1945), Kristen Ghodsee (Everyday Utopias, 2023), Gregory Claeys (Utopianism for a Dying World, 2023), and others round things out. The course will culminate with student group presentations on historical utopian communities or movements where the pickings are ample and diverse: HRH Prince (now King) Charles’s model town Poundbury in Dorchester, England; the kibbutz movement in Israel; the Paris Commune; Freetown Christiania in Copenhagen; The Farm in Tennessee; Auroville in India, et al. Evaluation: The course will be discussion-based and student-driven. There are weekly graded discussion posts and a short final essay on “How We Might Live.” Attendance and participation required.

This course explores human experiments in fashioning an ideal society, in theory and in practice. Three base texts will inform our discussions: Plato’s foundational Republic (c. 350 BCE), the Anarchist Peter Kropotkin’s manifesto The Conquest of Bread (1892), and Simone Weil’s The Need for Roots (1949) Utopian and dystopian visions in film will also receive close attention, including, e.g., Terry Gilliam’s Brazil (1985), David Fincher’s Fight Club (1999), Bong Joon-Ho’s Snowpiercer (2013), and Peter Weir’s The Truman Show (1998). Excerpts from Friedrich Engels (Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, 1880), John Ruskin (Unto This Last, 1862), Karl Popper (The Open Society and Its Enemies, 1945), Kristen Ghodsee (Everyday Utopias, 2023), Gregory Claeys (Utopianism for a Dying World, 2023), and others round things out. The course will culminate with student group presentations on historical utopian communities or movements where the pickings are ample and diverse: HRH Prince (now King) Charles’s model town Poundbury in Dorchester, England; the kibbutz movement in Israel; the Paris Commune; Freetown Christiania in Copenhagen; The Farm in Tennessee; Auroville in India, et al. Evaluation: The course will be discussion-based and student-driven. There are weekly graded discussion posts and a short final essay on “How We Might Live.” Attendance and participation required.

This course explores human experiments in fashioning an ideal society, in theory and in practice. Three base texts will inform our discussions: Plato’s foundational Republic (c. 350 BCE), the Anarchist Peter Kropotkin’s manifesto The Conquest of Bread (1892), and Simone Weil’s The Need for Roots (1949) Utopian and dystopian visions in film will also receive close attention, including, e.g., Terry Gilliam’s Brazil (1985), David Fincher’s Fight Club (1999), Bong Joon-Ho’s Snowpiercer (2013), and Peter Weir’s The Truman Show (1998). Excerpts from Friedrich Engels (Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, 1880), John Ruskin (Unto This Last, 1862), Karl Popper (The Open Society and Its Enemies, 1945), Kristen Ghodsee (Everyday Utopias, 2023), Gregory Claeys (Utopianism for a Dying World, 2023), and others round things out. The course will culminate with student group presentations on historical utopian communities or movements where the pickings are ample and diverse: HRH Prince (now King) Charles’s model town Poundbury in Dorchester, England; the kibbutz movement in Israel; the Paris Commune; Freetown Christiania in Copenhagen; The Farm in Tennessee; Auroville in India, et al. Evaluation: The course will be discussion-based and student-driven. There are weekly graded discussion posts and a short final essay on “How We Might Live.” Attendance and participation required.