Western Civilization II



Western Civilization II

Spring 2004

Professor Knight

Extra Credit Assignment

Due date: April 15th

I expect you all to read Eugene Zamyatin’s We and participate in class discussion. In addition, for extra credit, I will accept short papers (3-5 pages) responding to the following assignment:

Eugene Zamyatin’s We is sometimes viewed as a response to Soviet totalitarianism. But there is a problem with this interpretation. Although Zamyatin was a Russian, and was clearly influenced by what was going on around him, he wrote We in 1920, well before a full-blown totalitarian society took shape under the rule of Joseph Stalin. Zamyatin’s anti-utopian vision, therefore, reflects not so much the actual conditions in which he lived as the potential of certain ideas and trends present not only in Russia, but within Western civilization as a whole. Your task for this paper is to consider what these ideas and trends may have been. What tendencies prevalent both inside and outside of Russia in the years before 1920 may have contained the seeds of Zamyatin’s “One State.”

This is not a research assignment. A careful consideration of the society described in We should provide ample evidence of the tendencies that evoked Zamyatin’s concern. I do not require, or even recommend that you undertake outside readings. If you do consult any outside sources, however, they must be listed in an attached bibliography and cited in the text where relevant using standard citation methods—either “in-line” (MLA style) citations or footnotes.

Although this is an optional paper, standards for academic integrity will be the same as for a regular assignment. Plagiarism will result in a lowering of your final grade and, if it is part of a larger pattern of academic dishonesty, may cause you to fail the course.

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download