The Badlands of Modernity offers a wide ranging and original interpretation of modernity as it emerged during the eighteenth century through an analysis of some of the most important social spaces. Drawing on Foucault's analysis of heterotopia, or spaces of alternate ordering, the book argues that modernity originates through an interplay between ideas of utopia and heterotopia and heterotopic spatial practice. The Palais Royal during the French Revolution, the masonic lodge and in its relationship to civil society and the public sphere and the early factories of the Industrial Revolution are all seen as heterotopia in which modern social ordering is developed. Rather than seeing modernity as being defined by a social order, the book argues that we need to take account of the processes and the ambiguous spaces in which they emerge, if we are to understand the character of modern societies. The book uses these historical examples to analyse contemporary questions about modernity and postmodernity, the character of social order and the significance of marginal space in relation to issues of order, transgression and resistance. It will be important reading for sociologists, geographers and social historians as well as anyone who has an interest in modern societies.

The Badlands of Modernity offers a wide ranging and original interpretation of modernity as it emerged during the eighteenth century through an analysis of some of the most important social spaces. Drawing on Foucault's analysis of heterotopia, or spaces of alternate ordering, the book argues that modernity originates through an interplay between ideas of utopia and heterotopia and heterotopic spatial practice. The Palais Royal during the French Revolution, the masonic lodge and in its relationship to civil society and the public sphere and the early factories of the Industrial Revolution are all seen as heterotopia in which modern social ordering is developed. Rather than seeing modernity as being defined by a social order, the book argues that we need to take account of the processes and the ambiguous spaces in which they emerge, if we are to understand the character of modern societies. The book uses these historical examples to analyse contemporary questions about modernity and postmodernity, the character of social order and the significance of marginal space in relation to issues of order, transgression and resistance. It will be important reading for sociologists, geographers and social historians as well as anyone who has an interest in modern societies.

Doctoral Thesis / Dissertation from the year 2009 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Literature, Works, grade: magna cum laudae, , course: English Literature, Film Studies, language: English, abstract: Angela Carter’s work is a collage of discourses and genres tackling such issues as identity construction, marginality, myth as foundation of ideology, fluidity of boundaries. Her playful intertextual allusions to literature, psychology, politics and popular culture are infused with irony and wit, and the challenge of finding a critical framework complex and accurate enough by which to study her work has remained, since no classification seems to do her justice. My solution in this study is to move away from the urge to approach her works according to literary frames, to a discussion informed by a different metaphor, denoting enigmatic spaces, conterdiscourses, borders of otherness – heterotopia. My looking-glass examines five novels out of nine, five short stories out of thirty-five, as well as Carter’s two film adaptations. I have condensed her rich patchwork of stories, characters and techniques into a term extricated from its medical and geographical roots, befitting the rich intertextuality of her themes, her interest in boundaries between fact and fiction, margins and centres, or the interplay between sacred and profane. The concept of heterotopia emphasizes the ambiguity, as well as the dialogic interaction of Carter’s often discordant discourses. The spectacular and the pragmatic threads of her texts, framed by extreme seriousness and witty humour, have delighted and offended readers, consequently maintaining Carter’s literary and cinematic montage at the top of the literary canon, as the present study will show.

Challenging some assessments of religion in the West, this study argues that, although much organized religion, particularly Christianity, is in numerical decline, in actual fact we are witnessing an alternative spiritual re-enchantment of society and culture.