UTOPIA IS AN ISLAND. WHY?

From the Garden of Eden onwards, we have long thought of the world in terms of space. There are spaces we exist in; spaces we pass through; and spaces we imagine, in dread or in dreams. This semester we will read texts that span the globe and many centuries, from the third millennium BC to the mid-1600s. Each of these texts revolves around space imagined, created, or traversed. Each resonates with a current question or idea: what path to take through life; the “discovery” of new worlds; the relationship between humans and the natural world; how to envision civic or domestic space. We will think about alternate universes. We will discuss the role of the journey, of mapping and getting lost. And we will explore ideas of utopia, dystopia, and other kinds of places in a range of historical and political contexts.