i did say that i would be enlisting your help in real ways. now, for example, i am currently developing/imagining a year-long thematic course outline tentatively organized as communities/dystopias/utopias. i'd love your suggestions on anything, fiction/poetry/film/essays/real-life projects, for young adults and regular-size adults, you can think of. i'm hesitant to give examples because i don't want to limit your thinking on this, but if this doesn't quite make sense, think (standard high school curriculum & beyond):
COMMUNITY Sandra Cisneros, Sherman Alexie, Achy Obejas (Memory Mambo), Paul Beatty (White Boy Shuffle), White Oleander,...
DYSTOPIA Lord of the Flies, Margaret Atwood (Handmaid's Tale), anything Ray Bradbury, anything Orwell, Brave New World, It's All About Love, Clockwork Orange,...
UTOPIA Herland, The Giver,...well thinking up utopic texts is always a bit more difficult...
real life utopic projects, large and small, would be particular treasures. of course i expect you to help me, sha, my fellow traveler, my sf darling...and if you're reading mr. barash i want anything you can think of about maps, mapping. bodies and cities. remember that detroit motown street name complex? little england in appalachia? i'm hungry for culture so throw at me what you can, every body. thanks in advance
6 comments:
Oooh, how I love a project.
For community (an easy one, no? I'm limiting myself to two here, but I'm sure I could come up with more)
Mama Day - Naylor
Persepolis - Satrapi
For dystopia
"Harrison Bergeron" - Vonnegut (this is one of the very few things I remember fondly from my formal education)
The movie Brazil (so lovely, so layered) or 12 Monkies, since I'm thinking Gilliam
For utopia
It might be interesting to pull selections from mythology/religion (describing the garden of eden, the elysian fields, the state of nirvana and so on) and to trace their refrences in fiction.
I may come back with more, later when I've got my library in front of me.
Best,
Emily
I think it might be interesting to start a community to build utopia one word at a time until the unspeakable ensues.
For an exhaustive history on utopian thought, Ernst Bloch's three volumed THE PRINCIPLE OF HOPE is a standard bearer. Volume two is particularly useful, giving a detailed history of utopian thought from the Greeks to the present. Dorothy Bryant's THE KIN OF ATA ARE WAITING FOR YOU is especially resonant with me. Ursula LeGuin's LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS, Marge Piercy's WOMAN ON THE EDGE OF TIME are both good as well. A good Utopia anthology was put together by Claeys and Sargent that you might find extremely helpful. I'd send you my copy, but all the anthologies were sacrificed in the latest move.
yevgeny zamiatin's WE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_(novel)
and when you come over i'll show you a TON of stuff on russian dis-/utopianism (my favorite is the 'community planning', el lisistky, Proletkult...)
and i'll think on it. we'll talk :)
In high school I took a course called, interestingly "Utopia and Dystopia". I'm now trying to remember everything we read, the biggest problem I recall was finding enough utopian literature. I'll back Russell on Marge Piercy (even though my mom is the villian in many of her books) and Ursula K LeGuin, but KIN OF ATA was not impressive to the teenagers in my class. Also, if you want some of the historical background to utopian thought without too many expensive collections, selections of Plato's REPUBLIC on its own is a manageable start.
Edward Bellamy's LOOKING BACKWARD is also a good historical perpective on the American utopia.
Most of the dystopias that really resonated with me as a teenager have been mentioned here, WE is absolutely essential, there are scenes from Brave New World and 1984 pulled directly out of it. One book that I really wanted to read in that class that we couldn't order in time was the graphic novel V FOR VENDETTA, its a spectacular dystopia and being able to read comic books for class is pretty cool. Not to mention that if you wanted to tie in the movie the differences between book and film illustrate quite well the way that a distopia captures the specific fear of social advances.
We should discuss this more in person when I can dig up some more titles from my class. But you have a great idea, and I think the inclusion of literature on community will really ground discussion well.
Hey Geauxgeaux, a few thoughts here; I also happen to have just prepared a very small annotated biblio for one of the UCSC college websites, on ecotopian fiction in particular - mostly novels - and I'll email an expanded version to you. In the meantime, some short sf stuff that may or may not be appropriate for your task; I'll let you sort out whether these stories and songs are utopian, dystopian, or simply exceed those categories.
SONGS
Billy Bragg: "World Turned Upside Down"
Deltron 3030: "3030"
Donald Fagen: "I.G.Y.", "New Frontier"
Fennesz ft. David Sylvian: "Transit"
Gil-Scott Heron: "Whitey on the Moon", "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"
Jimi Hendrix: "Third Stone from the Sun", "Up From the Skies"
Postal Service: "Brand New Colony", "Sleeping In"
Public Enemy: "Fear of a Black Planet"
Will Shatner: "It Hasn't Happened Yet"
Sun Ra: "Nuclear War"
Talking Heads: "Life During Wartime", "Totally Nude", "Heaven"
T-Bone Burnett: "Humans From Earth"
Stevie Wonder: "Saturn", "Village Ghetto Land"
SHORT STORIES/NOVELLAS
Ursula K. LeGuin, "A Hole in the Air" ~ a short myth in LeGuin's excellent ethnography of the Kesh, a future Californian people, Always Coming Home. A man from this society goes through a gate that leads to ours...
Geoff Ryman: "The Unconquered Country" ~ a novella that tells a science-fictionalized version of Cambodia's recent history, marvelous and horrifying.
Geoff Ryman: "O Happy Day!" ~ and what if all men were to rounded up and euthanized? An insider story from one of the gay men who mans the camps, pun intended.
[Not "short", but maybe ideal for your purposes, especially as an easily read, near-future dystopia:]
Octavia E. Butler: Parable of the Sower.
Probably already too much; I have all the songs if you want them!
remain in light,
Sha
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