Commune over Constitution: Early 19th-Century Utopian Literature Against the 'American Utopia

David Puthoff examines two early novels—James Reynolds’s 1802 Equality, a History of Lithconia and George Fowler’s 1813 A Flight to the Moon; or, the Vision of Randalthus—as a means of illustrating what he argues is... [ view full abstract ]

David Puthoff examines two early novels—James Reynolds’s 1802 Equality, a History of Lithconia and George Fowler’s 1813 A Flight to the Moon; or, the Vision of Randalthus—as a means of illustrating what he argues is the entrenched liberal fantasy of an all-inclusive society. Puthoff’s project serves as a partial counter to Frederic Jameson’s influential 2016 essay “An American Utopia”; focusing on utopias of the late 20th Century, Jameson finds political shelter in the institution of the armed forces. As a means of opposing Jameson’s fantasy of a military where identity differences are erased without resorting to class consciousness, Puthoff turns to the early history of American utopian thought. Both Reynolds and Fowler offer an alternative to Jameson’s militarized notions of utopia. At the same time, they engage with period-specific pseudosciences of race.