Class Notes - Monday, January 27, 2003

• Utopias go back to Plato

• many are first religious --> Ex: the garden of Eden

• rationale Utopias: Plato's Atlantis and Republic

• Freud says we all have a tendency to imagine a Utopia

• Science Fiction impulse to Utopia is from Renaissance because new Scientific Method was born (Ex: The New Atlantis)

• Sir Thomas Moore basically rewrote Republic and called it Utopia

• Big explosion of Utopias came with the Industrial Revolution because of new technology (railroads) and development of evolution theories (theories of progress)

• Utopias assume logic will structure the society and that problems can be easily isolated

• 20's, 30's, 40's --> Dystopias in response to totalitarism

• 70's to present --> Dystopias & Utopias dealing with gender issues

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