Utopia and Revolution in Russia and the United States
Course Requirements

This tutorial will study the relationship between revolution and utopia as represented in literary texts and political theory. The nature of this intersection will be examined in two national settings of very different eras: the United States (and British Colonies) from 1700 to the present day and Russia (and the USSR) from 1850 to 1950. Three questions will be central to the course: What is the relationship between literature and political theory?; Do the ends justify the means in the application of political and artistic vision?; Can literary and political ideas effect social and political change? We will be reading a variety of utopian, dystopian, and anti-utopian texts and will investigate the application of these ideas in art, politics and propaganda.

Required Texts:

Claeys, Gregory and Lyman Tower Sargent, eds. The Utopia Reader. New York: New York University Press, 1999.

Kelly, Catriona, ed. Utopias. Russian Modernist Texts 1905-1940. London: Penguin Books, 1999.

Zamiatin, Evgenii Ivanovich. We. New York: Penguin USA, 1993.

Course Requirements:

Discussion List: In addition to completing readings prior to class, you will also be expected to prepare questions for and respond to our class electronic discussion list. Questions and responses need not be lengthy (one or two paragraphs) but they must be comprehensible and grammatically correct (no e-mail speak, please). Two students a week (working pairs) will pose questions and ten will respond to either the questions posed or to the response of another student. Questions will concern assigned readings, theoretical issues central to the course, and related current events.

Course Working Pairs
Pair #1: Louisa Warren, Robert Wood
Pair #2: Paul Ames, Coco Downey
Pair #3: Josh Brody, Melissa Colon
Pair #4: Alison Mynsberge, Sofia Brichford
Pair #5: Shelley Mills, Adele Trueblood
Pair #6: Kate Ottesen, Gerald Walther

Formal Written Assignments: One of the primary goals of the tutorial is to develop writing skills. You will be required to write four formal papers, varying in length. These assignments will be described in detail in class, and in handouts. We will work together in generating these assignments, and you will be asked to share drafts of papers with fellow students for peer editing and review. You will have the option (and, occasionally, a rewrite will be required) of rewriting any assignment in order to improve your work and its initial evaluation.

Research Skills Development: Another important aspect of the tutorial is to introduce you to the ins and outs of doing college-level research. While we will not write an extensive research paper in this course, we will learn a number of research strategies and create a jointly researched bibliography at the end of the course.

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