Every Prisoner in His Cell : Space, The Bodily Space, Utopia, Dystopia, and Gattaca

Tembo, Kwasu (2018) Every Prisoner in His Cell : Space, The Bodily Space, Utopia, Dystopia, and Gattaca. Journal of the Future Humanities, 2. pp. 69-95.

Abstract

Truly the garment had seemed heavenly at first, shot with colours of culture, sewn with the threads of self-denial. And heavenly it had been so long as man could shed it at will and live by the essence that is his soul, and the essence, equally divine, that is his body. (E. M. Forster 13) The themes of utopia and dystopia arguably form the basis of much of 20 th and 21 st century science fiction. These themes are often aesthetically and narratively expressed through the concept of a society in which a specific population, group, or topological space is onto-existentially and/or psychoemotionally controlled by apparatuses of State power including bio-genetic engineering.