Utopias and Dystopias in Literature (ELCS0033)

Amendments may be made prior to the start of the academic year

Through the study of some of the most controversial and celebrated examples of what may be termed as utopian, anti-utopian and dystopian literature, this module will explore some key elements of utopian / dystopian / anti-utopian literature. The module examines themes such as the control and manipulation of language, as well as religion, history and gender and considers the way in which the contemporary can be explored in an imagined future. Examples of texts studied for this module include  Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland (1915), set in an isolated society made up entirely of women and engages with issues relating to gender identity in the early part of the twentieth century. Zamyatin's We (1924) presents a totalitarian society, "OneState', and is arguably the archetype of the modern dystopia. Brave New World (1931) in an imagined future engages with questions of identity, mass production and homogenization emerging post World War One. 

Primary Texts: these are subject to change and will be confirmed by the tutor in advance of teaching 

Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (any edition)
	Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Herland (any edition)
	Yevgeny Zamyatin, We (London: Penguin) Translated by Clarence Brown
Initial Secondary Bibliography – readings will be made available on Moodle and via the UCL Library online catalogue:

M. Keith Booker, Dystopian Literature: A Theory and Research Guide (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1994)
	M. Keith Booker, The dystopian impulse in modern literature: fiction as social criticism, (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1994)
	Gregory Claeys, ed, The Cambridge companion to utopian literature, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010)
	Thomas Moylan, Scraps of the untainted sky: science fiction, utopia, dystopia (Boulder, CO; Oxford: Westview Press, 2000).
Please note: This module description is accurate at the time of publication. 

 