Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Syllabus: Literature of Dystopia

Reading List:

1984 by George Orwell
A Totality for Kids by Joshua Clover
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Pause Button, among others by Kevin Davies
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Time Out of Joint or A Scanner, Darkly by Philip K. Dick
Watchmen by Alan Moore
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson
"Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut
Farrenheight 451 by Ray Bradbury
Critical Writings by F.T. Marinetti
Garbage by A.R. Ammons
Y the Last Man by Brian K. Vaughn & Pia Guerra

Films:
Soylent Green, Gattaca, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Escape from New York, Them, 12 Monkeys, City of Lost Children, Blade Runner, Firefly

Course Objectives:
What is the world becoming. What did we want it to become. What do we do to make the world better. Why is it so obvious what is going wrong. Who do we blame, how to we stop it, why is it so ungraspable. How is the future always the present. How are past views of the future different from present views of the future. What is the future. How far away is the future. How does the future look different from our past, our present. What is the perfect future. What is the cost of perfection. What is the government's role in our future. How do we balance our government's role in our daily lives. Insert technology for government. Insert money for both. What is balance.   

2 comments:

jane said...

Is this an actual syllabus for a course you're teaching, or meditation for an imagined community (or both)?

Farrah Field said...

Hmm. A course in my utopia? (Sorry if in my utopia sounds obscene.)