Dreamworlds: Utopia from Plato to the Present

Can acts of writing change the world? This course looks at a number of famous utopias and dystopias from classical time to the modern period and analyzes how the genre's literary experiments transform reading into a political act. Works by Plato, More, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Swift, H.G. Wells, and Le Guin. Films will include Blade Runner and Pleasantville .