Currently, I am writing my dissertation in Philosophy and German Literature. The main question of the dissertation is how to determine the logical status of heterotopia. In what way can we determine the relation between a heterotopia and a totally administered space surrounding it? Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault concerning power-relations and the disciplinary force of a pan-optically observed space over subjects, the question would be, how heterotopia is possibly thinkable in such a space. The tension concerning this question is manifest in Foucault’s work, when he faces questions about subjectivity in the context of his power-concept. In these parts, Foucault refers often to power as something resembling a potent spontaneous agent working on its own.
I suggest to revisit the concept of subject, not only in order to bring down to earth the theorizing on power and its relation to space, but also to clarify the logical status of heterotopia. I suggest to revisit the Hegelian subject-concept, not only because it represents the pivotal representation of subjectivity in the modern thinking, but also because Hegel thinks the subject in relation to intelligibility (Erkenntnis) and to power. As Hegel states, the central point is “das Wahre nicht als Substanz, sondern eben so sehr als Subjekt aufzufassen und aufzudrücken.” The he relates the True – determining and determined by subjectivity – to power, namely when he talks about the Master-Slave-dialectic. In the process of rendering a knowledge-object intelligible, the subject must desire/will that knowledge and the object must respond to this desire. This is a power-relation, because the response of the object is motivated/forced by the desire of the subject. This power does not deny the object of agency though. The object can object to/resist/refuse the process of knowledge and the desire of the subject.
From here I suggest to determine the relation of a pan-optically normalized space to heterotopia by looking at the relation of family/house to civil-society/state. The Hegelian utopia, which is in the same time the promise of modernity, is expressed by the dialectical process lying between these contradicting institutions. This process will eventually organize the vanishing of the intervention of the state in the personal affairs. By legislating privacy laws, for instance, the state will organize the vanishing of its own power. The huge legacy of this utopia cannot be overestimated enough, but nevertheless, as Foucault showed, it is turning into its opposite, where the state initializes the total-administration of space through pan-optic disciplination. For my project though, Hegel’s thought in this respect is important because of the way he thinks the logical status of the family-house within the space of civil-society/state. So understanding the relation between house within a state will shed light on the relation between heterotopia within a pan-optically normalized space.
In the second part of the dissertation, I discuss heterotopian representations in the work of J. W. Goethe. In the West-Eastern-Divan, which closes with the “Book of Paradise,” the heterotopia is represented as an aesthetic space. In The Elective Affinities, Goethe represents a heterotopian space through the failure of a social experiment, which demonstrates the Zusammengehörigkeit of subjectivity and space. In the Helena-Faust-Scene in Faust II, Goethe represents a natural space in contrast to the social space as a heterotopia. In this part, I am not only trying to make the concept heterotopia available for the reconstruction of literary texts, but also I am using the late-work of Goethe as a material to better understand the status of heterotopia within a totally normalized pace.