Modern Dystopias: Brave New World, 1984, Lord of the Flies

In Utopia, written in 1516, Thomas More sketched the image of an ideal society functioning as a foil against the corruptive and degenerate state of his contemporary England. Of course, Utopia is fictive, not real, yet More trusted that his own people would at some point be able to change into something resembling his visionary island society. A utopia therefore is a ‘no place’, a place that does not exist yet, but is hoped to come into being at some time in the future. However, whereas the 16th century was obviously still confident enough to believe in a general bettering of society, the first half of the 20th – especially with respect to the consequences of two devastating world wars – offered a much less optimistic view concerning the progress of man and society. Therefore, genuine utopias became a rare thing – what we find in their place are so-called dystopias. These are visions of a future in which society at first glance may also appear flawless and well-functioning, but whose perfection sooner or later turns out to have been reached by paying a price much too high: individuality and liberty have been killed off by the demand to strictly conform to the rules of the state or some powerful oligarchic group: by biological engineering, by the imposition of drugs etc.

In the course of the seminar, we will read two of the most famous 20^th-century dystopias, namely Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (¹1932) and Goerge Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (¹1949), as well as William Golding’s Lord of the Flies (¹1954). The latter, though maybe not a dystopia proper (since it is set in the present), is an allegorical tale which explores human nature and shows how societies come into being in the first place.

It will be the aim of the seminar to discuss the relevance of these texts with respect to their criticisms of politics, philosophy, economics, the natural sciences etc., both in their specific contemporary contexts and in the long run. With regard to the latter, we will take into account the non-fictitious “Brave New World Revisited” (¹1958), in which – 26 years after the first publication of Brave New World – Huxley tried to re-evaluate its prophetic impact.

You must have copies of these editions of the novels in the first session:

Golding, William (2006), Lord of the Flies (Penguin Classics), intr. E.M. Forster, London et al.: Penguin (ISBN 0399533370).

Huxley, Aldous (2005), ‘Brave New World’ and ‘Brave New World Revisited’ (Harper Perennial Modern Classics), intr. Christopher Hitchens, New York et al.: Harper Perennial (ISBN 0060776099).

Orwell, George (2019). Nineteen Eighty-Four: An Annotated Edition, introduced by Thomas Pynchon, Penguin. (ISBN 9780241416419).

Assignments depend on the respective course of studies and will be explained in the first session.

Personal attendance during the first session is required to maintain enrolment status.Assignments depend on the respective course of studies and will be explained in the first session.
Please direct all your inquiries about vacancies to britlit.fragen.fk15tu-dortmundde.