Out of This World: Utopianism in Modern Political Thought

Naveed Mansoori

Out of This World: Utopianism in Modern Political Thought

Naveed Mansoori

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This is a course on utopianism in modern political thought. It is organized around three moments in the history of the genre of utopianism: its provenance with the discovery of the New World; the emergence and critique of a "utopian socialist" tradition in response to the Industrial Revolution; and finally, the ascendance and decline of "mass utopia" with "totalitarianism" during the World Wars. Those three moments scaffold the history of utopianism as an impulse and a disposition. By focusing on these two valences of "utopianism," we attend to how utopianism is a category people have placed themselves under and a category that historians (formal and informal) have drawn upon to remember and retell the history of political thought. To that end, we will examine the French Revolution and feminist and anti-colonial reappraisals of the "Rights of Man;" efforts to re-imagine the social organization of power in Central and Western Europe, the United States, and British colonies in North Africa and the Middle East; critique and diagnosis of the alienating and repressive conditions of life within an alien "utopia;" the theoretical and practical dissolution of "utopianism" into national histories and movements; post-colonial efforts to rebuild the colonies in the wake of the grisly history of "mass utopias;" and finally, contemporary reflections on "utopia" as a way of life and program for the future.

Out of This World: Utopianism in Modern Political Thought Naveed Mansoori This is a course on utopianism in modern political thought. It is organized around three moments in the history of the genre of utopianism: its provenance with the discovery of the New World; the emergence and critique of a “utopian socialist” tradition in response to the Industrial Revolution; and finally, the ascendance and decline of “mass utopia” with “totalitarianism” during the World Wars. Those three moments scaffold the history of utopianism as an impulse and a disposition. By focusing on these two valences of “utopianism,” we attend to how utopianism is a category people have placed themselves under and a category that historians (formal and informal) have drawn upon to remember and retell the history of political thought. To that end, we will examine the French Revolution and feminist and anti-colonial reappraisals of the “Rights of Man;” efforts to re-imagine the social organization of power in Central and Western Europe, the United States, and British colonies in North Africa and the Middle East; critique and diagnosis of the alienating and repressive conditions of life within an alien “utopia;” the theoretical and practical dissolution of “utopianism” into national histories and movements; post-colonial efforts to rebuild the colonies in the wake of the grisly history of “mass utopias;” and finally, contemporary reflections on “utopia” as a way of life and program for the future. Reading Schedule I. Introduction Thomas More, Utopia. II. Discovering Utopia Mauro José Caraccioli, Writing the New World, Ch. I. Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, The Inconstancy of the Indian Soul, Ch I. III. Securing Utopia Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Chs. XIII-XVIII, XXI. Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down, Ch. VII. IV. The Right to Utopia I Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, Chs. I-II. Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, Introduction, Chs. I-III. V. The Right to Utopia II Cedric Robinson, Black Marxism, Ch. VI. C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins, Ch. VI. Writing Assignment 1 Due. VI. Utopian Socialism E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, Ch. X. Robert Owen, New View on Society. VII. The Utopian Horizon I Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto. Karl Marx, “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon.” VIII. The Utopian Horizon II W.E.B. Dubois, Black Reconstruction in America, Chs. IV, VII. Friedrich Douglass, “What, To the Slave, Is the Fourth of July?” IX. The Utopian Horizon III Charles Tripp, Islam and the Moral Economy, Chs. I-II. Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, “The Truth About the Neicheri Sect and an Explanation of the Neicheris.” X. Whose Utopia? Or “This Is the Bad Place” Karl Marx, “Introduction,” A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Karl Marx, Capital v. I, “The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof.” Writing Assignment 2 Due. XI. Utopian Longing Sigmund Freud, “Civilization and its Discontents,” in The Freud Reader. Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality v. I, Introduction, Chs. I-II. XII. The Tomb of the Forgotten Utopian Benedict Anderson, Introduction, Chs. I-II, VII, IX. Rosa Luxemburg, “The National Question,” I. XIII. The Mass Utopia Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Ch. IX-X, XIII. Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism. XIV. Utopia after Utopia Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, Ch. IV. Adom Getachew, Worldmaking After Empire, Ch. III-IV. XV. The End of Utopia José Esteban Muñoz, Cruising Utopia, Introduction, Ch. I. Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Reconsidering Reparations, Ch. III, V. Final Due. Assignments and Grading • • • • This class will have a discussion component. To prepare for discussion, you will do a fifteen minute free write once a week about your readings. This will give you time to gather your thoughts for discussion. Your free writes are worth ten percent of your grade. You will write two five-page papers. I will distribute paper prompts with a clear rubric two weeks before the deadlines. Each paper will be worth twenty percent of your grade. For your final project, you will produce a 90-second video essay about a utopian movement, program, or object. I will provide you a prompt explaining how you should structure them. The video essay will be worth twenty percent of your grade. The final ten percent of your grade will be based on your attendance and participation.

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