Building Utopia

Building Utopia explores the rich tradition of utopian thinking across literature, social philosophy, architecture, and the visual arts. Here, utopia is examined in its modern form: as a call to transform the world through human planning and ingenuity. Aside from a vital excursion on Thomas More's pivotal novel Utopia (1516), the course focuses on nineteenth- and twentieth-century thinkers whose often wild and idealistic imaginings profoundly affected the shape of the real world. Students will delve into the works of Marie Howland, Edward Bellamy, the Italian Futurists, and Le Corbusier, among many others. The purpose of the course is to better understand the role that the utopian imagination has played in the construction of power.