The imaginary journey has been a source of fascination for writers in English since the publication of Thomas More’s Utopia in 1517. This course offers a survey of some of those journeys, read in the light of a series of themes: technology, gender, power and geographical space, up to and including Huxley’s Brave New World (1932). You will be expected to read More’s Utopia, Part 2, before the course begins and be prepared to discuss each week’s set text throughout the course. It is also recommended that, in preparation for the course, you should at least begin reading one or two of the weightier texts on the course (e.g. Robinson Crusoe and News from Nowhere).

• explain the utopian tradition from the sixteenth to the early twentieth centuries
• analyse the formal aspects of the utopian genre
• synthesise the various theoretical perspectives from which to approach the tradition
• evaluate the key issues with which utopian writing and thought have grappled

This module will be delivered through a mixture of synchronous and asynchronous activities, as part of this programme’s blended provision, which will include on-campus and online teaching and support.

The precise mode of delivery and details – subject to Welsh Government and Public Health Wales guidance – of the teaching and support activities will be made available at the start of the semester via Learning Central.

Academic skills: the particular skills of the module involve reading and understanding how a literary genre adapts to, negotiates with and transforms the culture from which it emerges. This requires careful scholarship, sensitivity to language through close reading and a broader historical awareness of social change and political thought.

Employability skills: these include the ability to synthesise information, participate in group-based discussion, to negotiate different and conflicting standpoints, to communicate ideas and to produce clear, informed arguments in a professional manner. Student-led research will encourage skills of information collation, selection and synthesis. 

The methods of summative assessment for this module are detailed in the table below.

Formative work to be submitted before each summative assessment: you can choose between submitting, as appropriate, an essay plan/structure, synopses of essay topic options (if undecided) or sample paragraph/s; for creative assignments, you can submit working drafts of parts of your composition, as arranged with the workshop convenor.

THE OPPORTUNITY FOR REASSESSMENT IN THIS MODULE:
As with School policy, failed or unsubmitted assessments can be retaken during the August resit period.

Indicative Syllabus:

Utopia and the Enlightenment Subject

• Thomas More, Utopia (1516)
• Francis Bacon, New Atlantis (1627)
• Margaret Cavendish, The Blazing World (1666)
• Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (1719)

Materialism and Modernity

• Bellamy, Looking Backward: 2000–1887 (1888)
• William Morris, News from Nowhere (1890)
• Fritz Lang and Thea Von Harbou, dir., Metropolis (1927)

Brave New Worlds

• H. G. Wells, The Time Machine (1895)
• Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1932)