“Imagine there’s no countries, it’s easy if you try” or at least that is what John Lennon tried to persuade us in the early 1970s. In his song he creates a link between the imagination and an important social formation - a country or nation. His song challenges us to use our imagination to rethink the relationship between the self and the society, or societies, within which we live. This course will explore how we use our imagination to help us navigate abstract constructs (like society) and the lived materiality of the world around us. It is designed to develop students’ reading, writing and critical thinking skills through the analysis of a variety of non-fiction essays and short stories. Through these texts we will examine the role of the imagination as a vehicle for self-expression in contemporary western countries, and its resulting effect on contemporary explorations of the relationship between the self and society.
