Ideas from the last meeting

Hey everyone,

At the last meeting, we discussed short works of fiction that fits our theme of Institutions & Ethics. Most of the suggestions were dark novels written in the 1900s about the evils of society which everyone seems to love (go figure). There were also short non-fiction and movies suggested.

This seems to be the sum:

Of the non-fiction essays, Thomas Swift's A Modest Proposal and Thoreau's Civil Disobedience were sure picks for good discussion. Plato's Republic was another non-fiction suggestion.

Of short novels:
Many novels by Orwell (most of what he wrote applies), including Animal Farm, Homage to Catalonia, many by Bradbury, including Fahrenheit 451 and the Illustrated Man, many by Vonnegut, including Mother Night, Cat's Cradle, and Slaughterhouse 5 (again, most anything of what he wrote applies), Brave New World by Huxley, The Dispossessed by LeGuin, and I Robot by Asimov.

Of Movies:
Gattaca was proposed, as well as Surrogates. I would like to add Gilliam's Brazil to the list here.

I have gone ahead and printed out copies of Swift's Modest Proposal for next class. It deals with the popular theme of eating babies! Also, as Matthew has noted, the text from Animal Farm is available online, so starting with these would give me a chance to check out other options. I also purchased I Robot by Asimov, and I think that a story or two from that would be great to discuss.

Next time, we will be talking over what to do when.