Law, Jurisp & Social Thought 209 - Utopia/Dystopia

Law has long been as central to the literary genre of utopian/dystopian writing as this genre has been to the legal imagination. Indeed, most schools of legal thought aim in some way at the optimization of human beings’ social, economic, and other modes of existence; conversely, utopian narratives consistently portray different juridical systems which are productive of the highest forms of peace, prosperity, morality and beauty, while dystopian texts complementarily explore (often very similar) systems as leading to various sorts of totalitarianism, legal madness and disaster.

In studying a range of literary texts and works of legal and critical theory, this course will pursue multiple lines of inquiry: Why should law and utopian/dystopian literature share these links, and where does each discourse enrich or hamper the other? How do the inner complexities of these discourses condition that affinity? Where (despite this affinity) do we find legal and utopian discourse at odds, and why? (e.g., why do we so often receive the impression that legal and political scholars reject utopian thinking as an impractical dream or, worse, a recipe for dystopia?) How does history condition our answers to all these questions, as well as to the question of why our own era seems to prefer dystopian narrative to its utopian counterpart?

Limited to 30 students. Fall semester.  Visiting Professor MacAdam.