Body Utopianism

This book investigates how desires to transform our bodies can bring utopia to the present, and how utopian practices often lead to distinctly dystopian or anti-utopian outcomes. It is the first comprehensive study to address the paradoxical relationship between bodies and utopianism. Franziska Bork Petersen discusses doping, bodybuilding and cosmetic surgery alongside practices such as retouching the 'body as image' on social media, and looks at how fashion modelling and performance 'estrange' the body. Techniques and technologies to transform our bodies are increasingly accessible and suggest an excessive identification of the body as lacking. To 'be a body' in a culturally meaningful way, we incessantly improve our bodily appearance and capacity. The book therefore addresses the utopianism inherent in a cultural understanding of bodies as increasingly controllable.

Franziska Bork Petersen is a performance scholar and teaches at Roskilde University, Denmark,the Danish National School of Performing Arts, and Heinrich-Heine Universität, Germany. Her work on dance, performance art and fashion has appeared in Performance Research and MedieKultur: Journal of media and communication research.

Autorentext

Franziska Bork Petersen, PhD, is a performance scholar. She teaches at Roskilde University, The Danish National School of Performing Arts and Heinrich-Heine Universität, Düsseldorf, Germany. Her work on dance, performance art and fashion has appeared in Performance Research and MedieKultur: Journal of media and communication research.

Inhalt

Introduction.- PART I: IMPOSSIBLE, IMAGINED AND IMAGINARY BODIES.- 1. On being a body in Thomas More's Utopia.- 2. Impossible body escapes.- 3. Technological bodies becoming images.- PART II: HUMAN ENHANCEMENT.- 4. Bodies of Lack.- 5. Utopias of Bodily Capacity.- 6. Beautifying body modification.- PART III: UTOPIAN ESTRANGEMENT.- 7. Bodily Estrangements of Space.- 8. Estrangements of corporeality.- 9. Estrangements of reproduction.- Conclusion.