Università Roma Tre

Dystopia from A (Apocalypse) to Z (Zombies) and the Question of Textualities

«Utopia is an idyllic world described by the hero and considered perfect, in contrast to the world he has left. The dystopia paints a nightmare world, apprehended as such in opposition to a better world known to the hero thanks to his personal experience, thanks to the memories of a bygone age, or thanks to the reading of forbidden books dedicated to a distant past» (Hélène Greven-Borde, Formes modernes du roman utopique en Grande Bretagne (1918- 1960), in «Etudes Anglaises», 1, 1977: 20). The course starts by tracing a genealogy of dystopia in literature and culture, and then looks at theories of adaptation examining a wide variety of examples drawn from the radio, opera, cinema, and television.
Starting with an introduction to "utopia" (Thomas More e Tommaso Campanella), the core syllabus consists of twelve dystopian texts, in the broader meaning: we will read and discuss, among the others, Jack London’s The Scarlet Plague, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, José Saramago’s Ensaio Sobre a Cegueira, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, and their adaptations for different media: film, television, opera, radio. We will approach the notions of intertexuality thanks to Alan Moore’s graphic novel V. for Vendetta, and of intermediality through Orson Welles’ The War of the Worlds and Simon Armitage’s radio drama The Raft of Medusa.
In analysing the texts, a variety of critical approaches will be considered, including theory of adaptation, media studies, intermedial studies, and genre theory. The course will also take into consideration the significance of dystopia in relation to social transformations, technological change, totalitarianism, and capitalist modernity.

Secondary Bibliography:
1. Linda Hutcheon, A Theory of Adaptation, New York-London, Routledge 2006 (trad. it. Teoria degli adattamenti, Roma, Armando 2011);
2. Irina O. Rajewsky, Intermediality, Intertextuality, and Remediation: A Literary Perspective on Intermediality. In «Intermédialités / Intermediality», n. 6, 2005, pp. 43-64.
3. Francesco de Cristofaro (a cura di), Letterature comparate [nuova ed.], Roma, Carocci 2020: capp. 1; 5; 10.
4. George Woodcock, Utopias in Negative, in «The Sewanee Review» 1956, Vol. 64, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1956), pp. 81-97; and Gregory Claeys, Three Variants on the Concept of Dystopia, in Fátima Vieira (ed.), Dystopia(n) Matters : On the Page, on Screen, on Stage, Newcastle Upon Tweed, Cambridge Scholars Publisher 2013.
5. Gregory Claeys, Dystopia: A natural history. A study of modern despotism, its antecedents, and its literary diffractions, Oxford, Oxford University Preess 2017; OR Patricia McManus, Critical theory and dystopia, Manchester, Manchester University Press 2022; OR Francesco Muzzioli, Scritture della catastrofe: Istruzioni e ragguagli per un viaggio nelle distopie, Milano, Meltemi 2021.

Further Readings:
Douwe Fokkema, Perfect Worlds: Utopian Fiction in China and the West, Amsterdam University Press, 2011
Massimo Fusillo et al. (a cura di), Oltre l’adattamento? Narrazioni espanse, Bologna, il Mulino, 2020.
Henry Jenkins, Convergence culture. Where old and new media collide, New York, New York University Press, 2006 (trad it. Cultura convergente, Milano, Apogeo 2007).

Primary Texts and Media Adaptations:
George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four [1948], any available edition (trad. it. ogni traduzione accreditata)
Medial transpositions:
• [Film] Nineteen Eighty-Four, directed by film Michael Radford, UK 1984;
• [Opera] Nineteen Eighty-Four, composed and directed by Lorin Maazel, libretto by J. D. McClatchy and Thomas Meehan, premiered in London, May 3 2005, Royal Opera House;
• [Radio Drama] Nineteen Eighty-Four, dramatised by Jonathan Holloway, directed by Jeremy Mortimer, broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 10th and 17th February 2013

Cormac McCarthy, The Road, New York, Alfred A. Knopf 2006
Film: The Road, directed by John Hillcoat, USA 2009

H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds [1898], ed. by A. Sawyer, London, Penguin 2005
Radio: The War of the Worlds, directed by Orson Welles, CBS, USA 1938

Intertexuality:
Graphic novel: Alan Moore and David Lloyd, V. for Vendetta [1982-1989], any available edition (trad. it. V per Vendetta, Milano, Rizzoli 2006)

Intermediality:
Radio drama: The Raft of Medusa, written by Simon Armitage, broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 18th April 2015

Optional Primary Sources:
Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale [1985], London, Vintage Classics 2017 (trad. it. Il racconto dell'ancella, Milano, Mondadori 1988)
Series: The Handmaid’s Tale, created by Bruce Miller, Hulu and MGM, USA-Canada 2017–

P.D. James, Children of Men, London, Faber and Faber, 1992
Film: Children of Men, directed by Alfonso Cuarón, UK-USA 2006

Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 [1953], any available edition (trad. it. ogni traduzione accreditata)
Fahrenheit 451, directed by François Truffaut, France 1966

Emily St John Mandel, Station Eleven, London, Picador, 2014
Station Eleven, created by Emily St. John Mandel and Claire Welland, HBO, USA 2021-2022

Niccolò Ammaniti, Anna, Torino, Einaudi 2015
Miniseries: Anna, created by Niccolò Ammaniti, Sky Studios, Italia 2021

Other sources to be agreed (Z is for Zombies too…)