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| 09/09 - 12/22 | ||||||
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Subject: English (UG) (ENGL)
CRN: 46680
Online: Some Synchronous | Lecture
Online
Old Core Requirements Met:
UG Core Literature/Writing
2020 Core Requirements Met:
Integ/Humanities
Both fictional and real life utopian efforts often emerge under dystopian conditions. Contrary to some notions of utopia as an impossible, perfect "nowhere," these utopias are grounded in a specific 'somewhere' - a time and place that call for better possibilities than the dystopian realities. We will consider examples of these efforts, beginning with Thomas More's foundational text, UTOPIA, and continuing through a mix of texts, film, music, and local organizations (St. Thomas community partners). Noting commonalities and differences as well as our own complicated responses to these necessarily imperfect utopias will help us understand their limitations and contributions. The roles of writing, reading, storytelling, and education will be a crucial part of our examination. Book authors will likely include Sandra Cisneros, David Todd Lawrence, Walter Mosley, and Indra Sinha. As a blended course, work for one of our course meetings is online with flexible timing, while the other is in person. This flexibility will help in scheduling your required community engagement work; you will choose between one of two or three community partners and work with them on-site once a week, giving you the opportunity to establish a relationship, gain new experience, and link that work to our study of utopias. The writing load for this course is a minimum of 15 pages of formal revised writing. This course satisfies the WAC Writing Intensive requirement and an Integrating the Humanities requirement.
4 Credits