ENGL 197: |
Upper-Division Seminar
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Dystopian Fictions |
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| Fall 2007 |
| Instructor: Rita Raley |
| Meets on: TR 12:30 PM - 1:45 PM SH 2617 |
| Prerequisites: Writing 2, 50, or 109; English 10; or upper-division standing |
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| This course cannot be repeated and is limited to upper-division English majors only. |
The ubiquity of dystopian themes in contemporary culture is perhaps entirely to be expected. As we will see, imagining post-apocalyptic or otherwise catastrophic futures can be read as one means of cultural critique. We shall thus examine these dystopic visions of a spectacular future as a critical engagement with the present. In our reading and film viewing we will encounter varied agents, institutions, and systems of social change, among them biotechnology (viruses, genetic engineering, cloning); media technologies; late capitalism; the intensification of state power; the "war on terror"; and ecological disaster.
Texts:
Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange
Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go
Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
Octavia Butler, The Parable of the Sower
Philip K. Dick, Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said
Essays by Mike Davis, Lieven De Cauter, and others. Graphic fiction will include Warren Ellis, Transmetropolitan and Anthony Lappé and Dan Goldman, Shooting War. Films will include Videodrome, Brazil, and Children of Men.
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