This book approaches the field of built heritage and its practices by employing the concept of heterotopia, established by the French philosopher Michel Foucault. The fundamental understandings of heritage, its evolution and practices all reveal intrinsic heterotopic features (the mirror function, its utopic drive, and its enclave-like nature). The book draws on previous interpretations of heterotopia and argues for a reading of heritage as heterotopia, considering various heritage mechanisms – heritage selection, conservation and protection practices, and heritage as mnemonic device – in this regard. Reworking the six heterotopic principles, an analysis grid is designed and applied to various built heritage spaces (vernacular, religious architecture, urban 19th century ensembles). Guided through this theoretical itinerary, the reader will rediscover the heterotopic lens as a minor, yet promising, Foucauldian device that allows for a better understanding of heritage and its everyday practices.

Heterotopia, literally meaning ‘other place’, is a rich concept in urban design that describes a space that is on the margins of ordered or civil society, and one that possesses multiple, fragmented or even incompatible meanings. The term has had an impact on architectural and urban theory since it was coined by Foucault in the late 1960s but it has remained a source of confusion and debate since. Heterotopia and the City seeks to clarify this concept and investigates the heterotopias which exist throughout our contemporary world: in museums, theme parks, malls, holiday resorts, gated communities, wellness hotels and festival markets. With theoretical contributions on the concept of heterotopia, including a new translation of Foucault’s influential 1967 text, Of Other Space and essays by well-known scholars, the book comprises a series of critical case studies, from Beaubourg to Bilbao, which probe a range of (post)urban transformations and which redirect the debate on the privatization of public space. Wastelands and terrains vagues are studied in detail in a section on urban activism and transgression and the reader gets a glimpse of the extremes of our dualized, postcivil condition through case studies on Jakarta, Dubai, and Kinshasa. Heterotopia and the City provides a collective effort to reposition heterotopia as a crucial concept for contemporary urban theory. The book will be of interest to all those wishing to understand the city in the emerging postcivil society and post-historical era. Planners, architects, cultural theorists, urbanists and academics will find this a valuable contribution to current critical argument.

A 2023 Choice Reviews Outstanding Academic Title Where is the space for contemporary environmentalism when both the utopian promises of a clean and pure earthly Eden and the dystopian prophecies of an environmental apocalypse have failed to be fully realized? As this book argues, rather than falling into one of these familiar environmental categories, contemporary space is configured as heterotopia, as in-between spaces of dissonance, where encounters with waste are a daily occurrence and where dirty matter refuses to submit to human demands and intentions. Through an exploration of a series of spaces in which acts of leisure and recreation are configured alongside vibrant dirty matter, Tom Bowers explores how contemporary heterotopia offers entanglements with a dirty other that promote novel opportunities for humans to ethically respond and be responsible to the continued presence of waste and to generate a sense of ecological care for a dirty world. In doing so, the book urges readers away from a utopian vision of what the environment should be and instead asks how we can ethically exist within and around the dirtied environment as it is. This book will be of interest to scholars of cultural studies, environmental rhetorics, and environmental ethics.

As the first book-length study of emergent Pakistani speculative fiction written in English, this critical work explores the ways in which contemporary Pakistani authors extend the genre in new directions by challenging the cognitive majoritarianism (usually Western) in this field. Responding to the recent Afro science fiction movement that has spurred non-Western writers to seek a democratization of the broader genre of speculative fiction, Pakistani writers have incorporated elements from djinn mythology, Qur'anic eschatology, "Desi" (South Asian) traditions, local folklore, and Islamic feminisms in their narratives to encourage familiarity with alternative world views. In five chapters, this book analyzes fiction by several established Pakistani authors as well as emerging writers to highlight the literary value of these contemporary works in reconciling competing cognitive approaches, blurring the dividing line between "possibilities" and "impossibilities" in envisioning humanity’s collective future, and anticipating the future of human rights in these envisioned worlds.

This book discusses the role Western military books and their translations played in 17th-century Russia. By tracing how these translations were produced, distributed and read, the study argues that foreign military treatises significantly shaped intellectual culture of the Russian elite. It also presents Tsar Peter the Great in a new light – not only as a military and political leader but as a devoted book reader and passionate student of military science.

'Perspective: Selected Essays on Space in Art and Design' explores the ways in which visual and physical space have been designed and experienced in different cultures. This book amplifies the significance of space as a design element by examining its implications in various contexts through a global perspective of art and design.

The management of World Heritage Cities and sites is a challenging task. Getting visitor flows and the enormous traffic under control and implementing urban development projects in ways that preserve the integrity and authenticity of cultural heritage requires a high level of expertise, backed by the support of civil society and politics. This book is the result of the 2018 Conference of the Organization of World Heritage Cities, held by the Regional Secretariat for Northwest Europe and North America in Amsterdam, with the theme "Heritage & Tourism: Local Communities and Visitors – Sharing Responsibilities". The contributing expert authors – from Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe – draw on a range of disciplines to offer wider perspectives, stimulating dialogue among the spheres of heritage, sustainable tourism, and spatial planning. An updated chapter offers perspectives on sustainable tourism also after the COVID-19 pandemic.

This book examines the making of heritage in contemporary Japan, investigating the ways in which particular objects, practices and institutions come to be seen as forms of heritage which are ascribed public recognition and political significance.

Considers the uses and dangers of utopian thinking in the postmodern world