Heterotopia

The essays investigate the variety of utopias - the heterotopias - imagined by postmodernity. Some are real, others are poems. On the one hand, there are utopias of the body politic: postmodern city-planning projects designed to defeat the unstable forces of nature and society; alternative women's utopias; cities of the mind imagined by architects, sculptors, and writers. On the other hand, there are utopias of the human body: monuments of muscle envisioned by inveterate body-builders; towers of strength and stamina developed by high-performance athletes; paradises of perfect health and sexual pleasure guaranteed by advanced medical technologies. The eight contributors give their hopes for and warnings about utopian politics, the American city, sexual happiness, dreams of physical perfection, chronic pain and depression, AIDS research, the future of socialism after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the postmodern condition in general.