Is it possible to develop a critical theory of society without a positive normative vision of how things ought to be? This seminar will look at various forms of critical and utopian thinking, their opposition and overlap. Possible readings include Thomas More, Charles Fourier, G.W.F. Hegel, Karl Marx, Karl Korsch, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Ernst Bloch, Herbert Marcuse, Sigmund Freud, W.E.B. Du Bois, Otto Neurath, Alexandra Kollontai, Shulamith Firestone, Nancy Fraser, Moishe Postone, Frederic Jameson, Ursula K. Le Guin, Kim Stanley Robinson, David Graeber, & Olúfẹmi O. Táíwò.