This seminar examines the multifaceted utopianism in early modern Europe which tends to be overlooked in the Taiwanese higher education curriculum and introduces current scholarship on early modern utopian literature. While Plato’s Republic deals with the topic of an ideal commonwealth in an argumentative way, Utopia does so through a speculative approach, in the form of dialogue and fiction. This inaugurated utopian literature proper. In this seminar, we will study four early modern works of utopian literature to see how utopias became a medium of experimenting and exploring alternatives in the hands of their authors, and to delve into the breadth of the textual implications of these utopias in early modern European cultures. The first two sessions examine the history of the concept as well as the archetypes of utopias. Before the midterm, special attention will be paid to Thomas More’s Utopia, the formative text that lends its name to this genre. The primary texts and the secondary literature provided by the instructor shall invite students to critically examine the relations between utopian literature, travelogues, Renaissance humanism, attitudes toward gender, European encounters with the New World, and the idea of colonization. Students will also consider the political and socio-cultural milieus in which the selected texts were composed.

Three Early Modern Utopias: Utopia, New Atlantis, The Isle of Pines (Oxford World's Classics, 2009), Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World, plus a course pack.