Abstract

This dissertation {a} explores the possibility of utopian thought in light of such critiques; {b} proposes an understanding of the utopian that emphasizes the interruptive and transformative dimensions of the utopian event and the movement of utopian thought; {c} offers as a contemporary example of the kind of utopian thought argued for in the dissertation the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. ;In Chapter One I discuss how utopian thinking has come to be rejected or deemed suspicious by discussing some of the salient features of conventional utopian thought. I argue that a modified understanding of utopian thought possesses three aspects: {a} it keeps open the space of critique; {b} it contains the power to keep thought open and fluid; and {c} it possesses the capacity for transformation. Chapter Two develops the "erotic logic" of utopian thought by retrieving a notion of Eros presented by Diotima in Plato's Symposium. In Chapter Three I argue for the bodily basis of utopian thought by employing the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. I illustrate my claim that there is a bodily basis for utopian thinking by considering instances of female and male lived bodily experiences as they relate to inherited understandings of subjectivity. Chapter Four introduces another structure of utopian thought: the reversibility of perspectives. I argue the very possibility of reversing perspectives is linked to our ability to make transformative links across otherness and difference, both of which are central to utopian thinking. The concluding chapter addresses two questions. First, how does my understanding of utopian thinking measure up against recent proposals that attempt critique and transformation without the politics of utopian possibility? Second, since the language of traditional utopian thought is no longer helpful how might we speak about the utopian event in ways that do not betray the characteristics of movement and interruption? I answer the first by engaging the prophetic pragmatism of Cornel West. I answer the second question by arguing for the ideas of "witness" and "testimony" as ways that best enable us to speak about the utopian event as a transformative occurrence