‘Do you remember the telegram that gave us such a laugh, where an architect said he glimpsed a new conception of urbanism? But it wasn’t in the book; it was in a talk on the radio about utopia. They want me to give it again…’
(Defert, 1997: 274).
In the first essay I trace the history of the concept. I introduce each of Foucault’s three accounts of heterotopia, exploring in particular the lecture he gave to architects which has sparked most attention, criticism, interpretations and applications. I provide a detailed summary of the lecture, highlighting some difficulties with the English translations and teasing out underlying themes and references.
In the second essay, I look at the reception of Foucault’s idea of heterotopia. I provide a critical summary of the main interpretations and applications of the concept. In particular, I highlight some limitations of the notion, the use made of it in the theory of architecture and the various re-workings of the concept across many other disciplines and professions.
Download pdf: History of concept
Download pdf: Interpretations and applications
Related resources
Opening video clip from French documentary on Foucault (Arte France and BFC Production) by Phillipe Calderon: Michel Foucault par lui-même. The opening includes the beginning of Foucault’s (1966) radio talk on heterotopia ( see Defert’s quotation above) as well as striking images of ‘different spaces’.
Radio talk also available as a CD and text:
Foucault, M. (2004) [1966] Utopies et heterotopias [Utopias and heterotopias], CD: INA, Mémoire Vive.
Foucault, M. (2009) [1966] Le Corps Utopique – Les Hétérotopies. Paris: Éditions Lignes.
After you have read the essay, feel free to leave comments below.
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thanks for this
He is not interested so much in what is known at any one peirod but rather in the material conditions of thought that is the processes which led to certain facts being known rather than others This directly relates to my topic. While the quote exemplifies Foucault’s notion of power/knowledge, I would argue that the very idea of it, has everything to do with my topic of languages as they are very much apart of power/knowledge itself. Foucault claims that those who are acknowledged to have the power/knowledge are the ones who spread information around thus control which facts and figures are known by everyone else. In this way they sort of have a demi-god like status. This pertains to language, as those who have the power of language can use simple language tricks, really only known by those with the knowledge/power, to bias others witnessing an event. In a way its sort of like a magic trick, as the individual with the power/knowledge is able to pull a rabbit from out of his hat without everyone else seeing/knowing where the rabbit really came from. I have come across several research papers that would support this claim.