Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward

Assignment One:

1. Watch the fifteen-minute video on YouTube "Humans Need Not Apply."

2. Study the Assignment for Major Paper # 3.

3. In Looking Backward, read the "Note" and Chapter 1 (pages v. to 9) You can use your notes, but not the book, on quizzes on Bellamy.

4. Be prepared to discuss the following:
"Bellamy saw the roots of the problem [of poverty] as inherent in social and economic structures that pitted capital against labor for the sake of private profit. He did not flinch from pronouncing a moral judgment upon the system that made rapacious accumulation and indifference to one's fellow beings perfectly rational responses. But in the industrial forces that were rapidly changing American life, he saw the possibility of a massive transformation. While clearly a product of his time, as is evident in many of his ideas, Bellamy was nonetheless capable of going beyond the cherished rationales for inequality that were advanced in his own day -- as they still are in ours. Life begins with its material base, he argued again and again, and without economic equality, political equality -- that is, democracy -- is a mere pretense."  -- Daphne Patai

Read Chapters 2 to 6 (pages 9 to 31)
Based on this assignment, bring to class -- in writing -- a problem with Bellamy's utopia and/or a question about the reading.

Be prepared to discuss the following:
"[Andre] Gorz analyzes the nature and organization of work in advanced industrial societies and argues that work has a limited future in societies in which full-time waged work is simply no longer available for everyone and will become increasingly less so."    -- Daphne Patai

Read Chapters 7 to 11 (pages 31 - 59)
Based on this assignment, bring to class -- in writing -- a problem with Bellamy's utopia and/or a question about the reading.

Be prepared to discuss the following:
"During the Civil War, when preserving the Union . . . was the aim, American corporations had been given license to do what needed to be done in supplying the army, expanding the railroads, and exploring new mechanical inventions requiring large initial investments. The profits derived from government contracts and subsidies were so enormous that the number of millionaires in the country increased from three in 1860 to thirty-eight in 1890." -- Sylvia Strauss

Read Chapters 12 to 14 (pages 59 - 78)
Based on this assignment, bring to class -- in writing -- a problem with Bellamy's utopia and/or a question about the reading.

Read the introduction of the Wikipedia article on Social Darwinism up to the "Contents." Take notes. You can use them on the quiz.
Optional: Read the rest of the article and/or "Sumner and Social Darwinism." 

Read Chapters 15 to 21 (pages 78 - 109)
Based on this assignment, bring to class -- in writing -- a problem with Bellamy's utopia and/or a question about the reading.

Optional Course Bonus Point: Read Joseph Schiffman's "Edward Bellamy's Altruistic Man," American Quarterly, Vol. 6, No. 3 (Autumn, 1954), pp. 195-209. [JSTOR] In 100-250 (written) words, explain Schiffman's main ideas, and be prepared to tell them to the class.

Read Chapters 22 to 25 (pages 109 - 131)
Many students seem to believe that in Bellamy's Boston, everyone would be the same--there would be no individuality. In 100-150 written words, explain one thing you can do today that you could not do in Bellamy (except get more money). Then, if you can, explain options that you would have in Bellamy's Boston that you do not have today.
 

Optional Course Bonus Point: Read Merritt Abrash's "Looking Backward: Marxism Americanized," Utopian Studies, No. 4 (1991), pp. 6-9. [JSTOR] In 100-150 (written) words, explain Abrash's main ideas, and be prepared to tell them to the class.

Read Chapters 26 to through the "Postscript" (pages 131 - 165)
Based on this assignment, bring to class -- in writing -- a problem with Bellamy's utopia and/or a question about the reading.