The unit will focus on Disney World, Epcot Center and Celebration as articulations of an utopianism stemming from Plato, through Virgil, Augustine, Dante, Bacon, More and H.G. Wells. Disney perhaps realizes the dystopian dreams of Voltaire and Huxley, creating a disturbing combination of Eldorado and Brave New World in a new media-induced cultural idiom that Baudrillard calls hyperreality. If the Platonic Politeia was a political-cultural order based on imperfect representation (mimesis) of perfect Forms (ideai), and the Virgilian City (urbs Romana) was the fulfillment of Roman destiny (fatum) guided by the religious, familial and civic ideals of pietas; if Augustine’s City of God (civitas dei) was the eschaton organizing all of history to prepare mankind for its final revelation, and Dante’s Paradiso provides a cosmic vision of God’s City as illuminating the universe itself with a light that reveals "the Love that moves the sun and other stars" (l’amore che move il sole e l’altre stelle); if Bacon’s New Atlantis was the realization of Renaissance self-perfection through careful study and control of nature constrained for universal human ends, and More’s Utopia was to be a place designed to reshape humanity into forms of social artistry balancing the pursuit of pleasure with communitarian ideals; if Voltaire’s Eldorado (like More’s utopia) was the critical antithesis to the corruption of Europe, providing the basis for enlightened satire as for his credo: Il faut cultiver notre jardin; if the science-fiction fantasies of Wells projected the feats of science and industry in the service of humanity, to give us a "Modern Utopia" adumbrating a world welfare state, and Huxley’s Brave New World envisioned an order run by the Culture Industry in which happiness is the result of enforced stupidity: then what is that city shining on the horizon of Orlando under the Sign of the Mouse? Baudrillard suggests that the Disney Corporation has provided a new utopian vision which does not hold simply the representation or realization of long-sought human ideals. Rather, it provides the "simulation" of well-being, happiness which is "no place" (ou topos, in Greek, with a pun on eu topos "good place," the roots of "utopia") based on the precession of simulacra: the interposition in culture of artifacts which are substitutes for traditional forms of life, in effect and by design replacing them with commoditized forms, articulating what Jameson calls "the cultural logic of late capitalism." Why see the world, which is dangerous and messy, when you can visit its simulation at Epcot? Why do penance for the Virgin when you can envision Tinker Bell for a nominal fee? Why live in crime-ridden cities or degenerating suburbs when you can inhabit the serenity of a rejuvenated 50's neighborhood with 90's amenities in the appropriately named abode of simulated happiness, Celebration? Why study paleontology when you can visit Jurassic Park? (In the film by that name, intimating the biotechnological thrills of the near future, the Park’s entrepreneur, John Hammond, says, "I knew we should have built in Orlando!") As this is the number one tourist (some would say "pilgrimage") destination in the World, these questions have an increasingly global sweep. Is Disney’s urban experiment, as Crichton Singleton has asked, "a triumph of New Urbanism or . . . another Disney stage set?" In any case, it is reasonable to view Disney from the perspective of the Western Utopian imagination, and draw it into the light (critical not neon) of the contemporary cultural studies, so as to take another look at Orlando’s dreams. This Honors seminar in Disney studies is designed to do just this.

Field Trip the Boca Raton Museum of Art—August 29/31: The class will visit the museum to view the art works of Don Eddy and Miles Batt, both of whom are concerned with American pop culture and Disney. A written response to the visit will provide an initial opportunity to be a field observer in cultural studies. Students may car pool or take Honors College vans. Student admission is $1.00.

"Disney: Private Control & Public Dimensions," November 9-12, 2000, Ft. Lauderdale: Students are invited to participate in this international conference in Disney studies, featuring Andrew Ross, author of Celebration Chronicles, and Jean Baudrillard, renowned French philosopher and author of Simulacra and Simulation (please see Required Books below for both texts). Student registration for the conference is $100. Students who do not wish to pay the fee and participate will not be penalized and may arrange alternative activities for class on Nov. 9.

Field Trip to Walt Disney World, Epcot Center, and Celebration—November 21 (tentative): The class will take a day trip to Disney for a participant-observer tour. Students will be asked to write a critical response based on their observations based on the theoretical and methodological approaches to cultural studies learned during the semester. The class may car pool or take Honors College vans; each person must pay for her/his own admission fees, meals, refreshments, purchases of Disney artifacts and so on.

Fjellman, Stephen M. Vinyl Leaves: Walt Disney World & America. Westview Press, 1992.

Gillman, Charlotte P. Herland. New York: Dover, nd.

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World and Brave New World Revisited. New York, Harper/Collins, 1973.

Ross, Andrew. The Celebration Chronicles : Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Property Values in Disney's New Town.

New York: Ballantine, 1999 (reserve copy available)

Skinner, B. F. Walden Two (Reissued). New York: Prentice Hall, 1976

Wells, H.G. A Modern Utopia. 1905. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1967

Augustine, City of God

Crow, Dennis. Philosophical Streets : New Approaches to Urbanism (Urbs Et Orbi, Vol 1. Maisonneuve, 1990.

Crichton, Michael. Jurassic Park. New York: Ballantine, 1990

Dante, Divine Comedy: Paradiso

Eisner, Michael. Work in Progress. With Tony Schwartz. New York: Random House, 1998.

Eppli, Mark J. Valuing the New Urbanism. Urban Land Trust: 1999.

Frantz, Douglas. Celebration, U.S.A. New York: Holt, 1999.

Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man

Haraway, Donna. Modest-Witness, Second-Millennium : Femaleman Meets Oncomouse : Feminism and

Technoscience. New York: Routledge, 1996.

---. Simians, Cyborgs and Women. New York: Routledge, 1991.

Katz, Peter and Vincent Scully. The New Urbanism : Toward an Architecture of Community. New York: McGraw

Hill, 1993.

Kolmerten, Carol A. and Jane L. Donawerth, Editors. Utopian and Science Fiction by Women;

Worlds of Difference. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1994.

More, Sir Thomas. Utopia. Trans. Robert M. Adams. Second Edition. Norton Critical Edition. New York: Norton,

1992. Contains selections from Erasmus, Bellamy, Huxley, Thoreau et al.

Nesbitt, Kate, ed. Theorizing a New Agenda for Architecture : An Anthology of Architectural Theory 1965-1995.

Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996.

Project on Disney. Inside the Mouse : Work and Play at Disney World : The Project on Disney (Post-Contemporary

Interventions). Durham: Duke UP, 1995.

Raz, Aviad Ed. Riding the Black Ship : Japan and Tokyo Disneyland (Harvard East Asian Monographs, 173).

Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1999.

Reynolds, Robert. Roller Coasters, Flumes and Flying Saucers. Northern Lights: 1999.

Ross, Andrew. The Celebration Chronicles : Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Property Values in Disney's New Town.

New York: Ballantine, 1999.

Smith, David et al. Disney: The First 100 Years. New York: Hyperion, 1999.

Smoodin, Eric Loren. Disney Discourse : Producing the Magic Kingdom (Afi Film Readers)

Virgil, Aeneid

Voltaire. Candide. New York: Bantam, 1981.

Singleton, Crichton. "Celebration: Disney's Experiment in New Urbanism." Online:

Swiatkowski, Jean-Paul. "The Clown: ‘The Kings’ Dark Doppleganger’ or Postmodern Regent?"

Voltaire, Candide:

--A final essay, 5 to 7 pages, providing a distinctive critical perspective on Disney: 25%;

–Participation in and presentation regarding a FAU’s Disney conference and/or a study tour of the Magic Kingdom, Epcot Center and Celebration, as well as class participation for the term: 25%.

–Essays will be graded in terms of content and composition. Students will be required to utilize MLA or another accepted documentation style. Electronic sources for documentation will be employed; see MLA under Electronic Sources.

Week 1 Plato, the classical polis, and Disney as Utopian Project. Fjellman, Vinyl Leaves, Chs. 1-2:

Week 2 Virgil and the Roman Imperial Vision (Aeneid, Book VI, reserve); Augustine (City of God, Book 1,

Week 3: More, Utopia complete. "; Fjellman, Ch. 11, "Utopia and Urban Planning." Response 1 due.

Fjellman, Cha. 4, "Distory: Disney History at the Magic Kingdom";

Week 4 Bacon, New Atlantis, Neville’s Isle of the Pines. More’s Utopia: Renaissance imaginings: toward a

Week 5 Voltaire: Eldorado, Candide chs. 17-19 (reserve/online) Enlightenment visions and scruples; read

Week 6 Wells: A Modern Utopia, Toward a World Industrial State; read selections from Smith, on reserve.

Essay II due.

Week 7 Huxley: Brave New World, the End of Utopia and the beginning of the Culture Industry; read

Week 8 Jameson: Postmodernity, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, and the Magic Kingdom

Week 9 Baudrillard: Simulated worlds, Simulated lives: Disney as a venture into Hyperreality; read

Week 10 Crichton: Biotechnological Fantasies: the shapes of things to come; Disney’s simulations of "live

Skinner, Walden Two.

Week 11 Alternative Futures: Utopian and Science Fiction Visions by Women; Disney’s projections of the

Science Fiction by Women (reserve): Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs and Women, on

reserveResponse 4 due.

Week 13 Film: The Lion King: the politics of race, class and "nature" in the Disney imagination; race, class

Weeks 15-16 Response 5 due 11/30. Student Presentations and Discussion. Fjellman, Chs. 18-19: