After the breakdown of socialist and communist systems in the East, it had become fashionable to declare the so-called "end of utopia" ("end of history," "end of narratives"). The authors of this volume do not share this view but think that it is time to rehabilitate utopian thought. The political concept of Utopia that has given its name to these transcendental projections onto the world has been too narrow to describe and analyze the moving forces of the mind perceiving human existence beyond reality. By broadening the perspectives of utopian studies, these essays enable the reader to reconstruct scholarly paradigms and strategies of utopian, complex and holistic thinking in modern cosmology, philosophy, sociology, in literary, historical and political sciences, and to compare traditions and ways of Western utopian thought to the practice in the East.

Thomas W. Rieger studied Art History, Archeology, City Planning and History at Universities Bonn, Zürich, Berlin and Columbia University, New York. He has been working at Museum of Contemporary History Bonn (Stiftung Haus der Geschichte) from 1993 to 1998, and since 1999 at Karl Ernst Osthaus-Museum Hagen as co-curator of the exhibition projectMuseutopia - Steps Into Other Worlds (2002). He teaches Theory of Architecture at RWTH Aachen.

List of Illustrations
Preface and Acknowledgements

Introduction
Jörn Rüsen,Michael Fehr andThomas W. Rieger

Chapter 1. The Necessity of Utopian Thinking: A Cross-National Perspective
Lyman Tower Sargent

PART I: POLITICS, CONSTRUCTION AND FUNCTIONS OF UTOPIAN THINKING

Chapter 2. Aspects of the Western Utopian Tradition
Krishan Kumar

Chapter 3. Visions of the Future
Michael Thompson

Chapter 4. Utopia, Contractualism, Human Rights
Richard Saage

Chapter 5. On the Construction of Worlds: Technology and Economy in European Utopias
Wolfgang Pircher

PART II: ARTIFICIAL WORLDS AND THE 'NEW MAN'

Chapter 6. Bodies in Utopia and Utopian Bodies in Imperial China
Dorothy Ko

Chapter 7. Science, Technology and Utopia: Perspectives of a Computer-Assisted Evolution of Humankind
Klaus Mainzer

Chapter 8. Thinking about the Unthinkable: The Virtual as a Place of Utopia
Claus Pias

Chapter 9. Natural Utopianism in Everyday Life Practice An Elementary Theoretical Model
Ulrich Oevermann

PART III: MUSEUM AS UTOPIAN LABORATORY

Chapter 10. Haunted by Things: Utopias and Their Consequences
Donald Preziosi

Chapter 11. Art Museum Utopia: Five Themes on an Epistemological Construction Site
Michael Fehr

Chapter 12. Art, Science, Utopia in the Early Modern Period
Wolfgang Braungart

Chapter 13. Utopiary
Rachel Weiss

PART IV: UTOPIA AS A MEDIUM OF CULTURAL COMMUNICATION

Chapter 14. The Utopian Vision, East and West
Zhang Longxi

Chapter 15. Trauma: A Dystopia of the Spirit
Michael S. Roth

Chapter 16. From Revolutionary to Catastrophic Utopia
Slavoj Zizek

Chapter 17. The Narrative Staging of Image and Counter-Image: On the Poetics of Literary Utopias
Wilhelm Vosskamp

Chapter 18. Rethinking Utopia: A Plea for a Culture of Inspiration
Jörn Rüsen

Notes on Contributors
Index