Recitation: Making Your World

Making Your World

At the end of The Blazing World, Margaret Cavendish tells readers that they are welcome to become subjects of the Blazing World, but they cannot usurp it.  If they don’t like the world she has created, they should create their own.

That is your mission!

Preparation:

1) Assess the Blazing World. Would you be content to live there?  Why or why not? Summarize your assessment in a paragraph of no more than 100 words.

2) If you were to build your own world from scratch, what would it look like? What kind of government would your world have? What sort of public policies? How would you envision religion? Would you want to just “tweak” our current world, or reinvent a world entirely? After you’ve developed a clear picture of what your world would look like, summarize its chief features in no more than 150 words so that you can share it with your colleagues.  If you would prefer, you are welcome to submit a 3-minute video.

Recitation:

In your recitation, you will share your assessments of Cavendish’s world and the worlds you’ve invented.

How do your ideal worlds resemble and differ from each others?  Be prepared to critique each others’ worlds, pointing out potential problems and solutions.  Can you together create a world that you would all be happy to live in?  If so, what would that world look like?  If not, what are the key points of disagreement?

Report:

In your write-up of recitation, tell us about the various realms you encountered as you visited each others’ worlds.  If you were able to arrive at a “consensus world,” tell us what that world looks like?  If not, what were the key points of disagreement?