Body Utopianism: Prosthetic Being Between Enhancement and Estrangement

Contents
1 Introduction
	The Body and Utopia
	The Body as Topos/Place
	The Body as Eu-Topia
	The Body as Ou-Topia
	Clarification of Terms: Utopia, Dystopia, Anti-Utopia—and ‘the’ Body
	Thoughts on Method
	Previous Work on the Body in Utopian Studies
	Contributions to Research
	Structure
	Bibliography
Part I Impossible, Imagined and Imaginary Bodies
2 On Being a Body in Thomas More’s Utopia
	Clothing the Body Indistinguishable
		Social Inequality
		Morality
		Individuality
	Unequal Feasting
	Strip to Wed
		Causing Him Delight
		Non-Reciprocal Transactions
		The Deceptive Sex
	Conclusion: More’s Flawed Humanism
	Bibliography
3 Impossible Body Escapes
	A Christian Body: Catherine of Siena’s Embodiment
		Saint Catherine of Siena
		The Utopian ‘No’ as Impossible Body Denial
	A Colonial Body: The U.S. Virgin Islands Queens’ Utopian Actions
		U.S. Virgin Islands Queens
		The Utopian ‘No’ as Embodied Defiance
		Beauty Pageants
	A Mechanical Body in Early Fashion Modelling
		Automatons
		Early Fashion Modelling
		The Utopian ‘No’ as Machinic Embodiment
		Embodied Desire, Impossibility and Mechanisation
	Conclusion: Utopia and Dystopia
	Bibliography
4 Technological Bodies Becoming Images
	Part-Time Cyborgs
	Quantified Self
	The Body as Image
		Contemporary Online Bodies
		The Imaginary as a Utopian Category
		Sexting
	Conclusion: Calculability and Control
	Bibliography
Part I Conclusion
Part II Human Enhancement
5 Bodies of Lack
	Eugenics
		Degeneracy
		Improving the National Body
		Applied Eugenics
	Fixable Lack
		Infinite Lack
	Conclusion: Utopianism as Process
	Bibliography
6 Utopias of Bodily Capacity
	Open-Ended Enhancement in Elite Sports
		Fragmented Machine Bodies
		Doping as Technique: Indistinguishability Between Therapy and Enhancement
		Out-Competing ‘Body Time’
	Conclusion: The Improved Body as Machine
	Bibliography
7 Beautifying Body Modification
	Cosmetic Surgery: Ceaseless Nipping and Tucking to Become Normal
		Individual Transformation as Cultural Iteration
	Bodybuilding: Excessive Enhancement as Deviant
		Building and Rebuilding the Body
	Conclusion: Transformation as Ideal
	Bibliography
Part II Conclusion: Capitalism’s Utopian Co-optation of Embodied Normalcy
Part III Utopian Estrangement
8 Bodily Estrangements of Space
	Mattress Performance (Carry that Weight)
		Spatial Estrangement from the Status Quo
		Beyond the Individual: Relational Aesthetics
		Not Presenting an Alternative
	Conclusion
	Bibliography
9 Estrangements of Corporeality
	Fashion in Utopia
	Unrecognisable Fashion Bodies in Plato’s Atlantis
		‘Novelty’ in Utopianism and Fashion
		Educating Desire Affectively
	Conclusion
	Bibliography
10 Estrangements of Reproduction
	Transformella
		Estranging the Nuclear Family
		An Outlandish Utopian ‘Good’
	Conclusion
	Bibliography
Part III Conclusion
11 Conclusion
	Part 1
	Part 2
	Part 3
	Being vs Living
	Utopia as the Result of a Doing
	Transformation
	Bibliography
Index