Feminist Utopias and Dystopias

From the religious overtones and abhorrence of heterosexual sex in the all-female world of Millenium Hall (1762), to the need for a new race of cyborg in Octavia Butler's Lilith's Brood Trilogy (1987-89), to the gender-inflected environmental apocalypse of Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake, feminist writers have used their utopian and dystopian fiction to imagine worlds where the standard system of male/female (or even human/machine) does not work. This course will examine feminist utopias and dystopias across historical periods and within the context of contemporary feminist and queer theory about gender, "race," sexuality, environmental justice, and interspecies communication. Sophomore seminar.