ENG251: Film and Literature, Fall 2017 Brian T. Murphy
Section N2, CRN 10916Bradley Hall, Y-16
Thursday,2:30–5:15 pm, E-311Tue/Thu 1:00–2:15 pm
Class web page: 516-572-7718
Response Paper Topics:
For each week, a question or topic will be provided. You may complete any five response papers, butyour response must be on the assigned topic for the week it is submitted, and must be submitted on or before the due date, by the beginning of the class period, or it will receive a zero (0) . Late work will not be accepted. Students may complete more than five response papers for extra credit: only the best five scores will be utilized in determining final grades.
Instructions: Respond to each question or topic in a brief, well-developed, coherent, and thoughtful essay of at least two to three pages (500-750 words) . Your essay should include independent analysis and demonstrate careful thought, but no research is necessary, nor should any secondary sources be used. This is not a research essay; the only sources utilized or quoted should be the texts themselves. Use of secondary sources, whether credited or not, will be considered grounds for failure. Although these are personal responses, and therefore there is no “correct” answer, remember that they are still formal essays: in your analyses, formulate a clear, explicit, assertive (persuasive) , objectively-worded thesis statement, and avoid use of “I” or “you” throughout. Do not attempt to address all aspects of the text, but carefully focus your topic, and avoid merely paraphrasing or summarizing the work. Be sure to support your answers with specific references to the work. Essays must be typed, double-spaced, and grammatically correct; essays will be evaluated according to the Model for Evaluation of Student Writing.
1)Due Sept. 28: Choose from one of the following:
Numerous writers, including Jill Lepore, Charely Locke, and Brian Phillips, have observed that since the election of 2016, there has been a significant rise of interest in dystopian literature. Sales of works such as 1984 and It Can't Happen Here have skyrocketed, seemingly propelled up the sales charts by current events. However, why this sudden interest? Clearly phrases such as “alternative facts” led to s resurgence of interest in 1984, but why read dystopian literature? What is its value, be it in our current socio-political milieu, or ever?
Sasha Geffen asks, “What would it take to build utopia—a universally humane, livable earth—without walls?” It seems that utopian and dystopian literature often stem from the same impulse, a desire to show how the world could be, either as a model to strive toward or as a cautionary tale. She also suggests that one person's utopia could be another's dystopia, that paradise for “us” often seems to involve somehow keeping “them” out, however we define “us” and “them,” excluding or even persecuting “the other.” Is it possible, as she asks, to have a true utopia, or must utopia always be simultaneously utopian and dystopian?
2) Due Sept. 28: Choose from one of the following:
One of the criteria common to dystopian literature is the separation of humanity from nature, the abolition of so-called “natural” impulses and desires. Consider the relationship between Smith and Julia and the very idea of “sexcrime.”Is sex a revolutionary actin 1984? Why, or why not?
What is Orwell’s 1984 really about? That is, if it can be said to have a theme, what is that theme? Is it concerned with truth, with politics, with war, with language, with man’s place in the cosmos? What is Orwell saying—not about Smith, or even Oceania, but about modern life, society, or the human condition?
Utopia and Dystopia
Utopia:definition, characteristics
The Republic (~380 BCE) by Plato
The City of God (413-426 AD) by Augustine of Hippo
Utopia (1516) by Thomas More
Christianopolis (1619) by Johann Valentin Andreae
The City of the Sun (1623) by TommasoCampanella(Italian philosopher)
New Atlantis (1627) by Francis Bacon
Erewhon (1872) by Samuel Butler
News from Nowhere (1892) by William Morris
Looking Backward (1888) by Edward Bellamy
Gloriana, or the Revolution of 1900 (1890) by Lady Florence Dixie
Herland (1915) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
A Modern Utopia (1905) by H. G. Wells
Walden Two (1948) by B. F. Skinner
Island (1962) by Aldous Huxley
The Lathe of Heaven (1971) and The Dispossessed (1974) , by Ursula K. Le Guin
Ecotopia (1975) by Ernest Callenbach
Always Coming Home (1985) , by Ursula K. Le Guin
Dystopia: definition, characteristics
A Sojourn in the City of Amalgamation, in the Year of Our Lord, 19-- (1835) Jerome B. Holgate
The Republic of the Future (1887) novella by Anna Bowman Dodd
The Time Machine (1895) novella and When the Sleeper Wakes (1899) by H. G. Wells
The Iron Heel (1908) by Jack London
The Machine Stops (1909) short story by E. M. Forster
We(1921) by Yevgeny Zamyatin
Brave New World (1932) by Aldous Huxley
It Can't Happen Here (1935) by Sinclair Lewis
If This Goes On- (1940) short story by Robert A. Heinlein
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) by George Orwell
Player Piano (aka Utopia 14) (1952) by Kurt Vonnegut
Fahrenheit 451 (1953) by Ray Bradbury
Bring the Jubilee (1953) by Ward Moore
Love Among the Ruins (1953) short story by Evelyn Waugh
Harrison Bergeron(1961) short story by Kurt Vonnegut
A Clockwork Orange (1962) by the English author Anthony Burgess
Make Room!Make Room! (1966) by Harry Harrison.
This Perfect Day (1970) by Ira Levin
The Running Man (1982) by Stephen King
The Handmaid's Tale (1985) by Margaret Atwood
The Children of Men (1992) by P.D. James
Oryx and Crake (2003) and The Year of the Flood (2009) by Margaret Atwood.
Never Let Me Go (2005) by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Hunger Games (2008) by Suzanne Collins
The Maze Runner (2009) by James Dashner