4: Text excerpt, Michel Foucault’s “Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias,” 1984, and text excerpts, Blume Lempel’s “Neighbors Over the Fence,” trans. Ellen Cassedy and Yermiyahu Ahron Taub, 2013.

4: Text excerpt, Michel Foucault’s “Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias,” 1984, and text excerpts, Blume Lempel’s “Neighbors Over the Fence,” trans. Ellen Cassedy and Yermiyahu Ahron Taub, 2013.

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) was a French historian and philosopher, associated with the structuralist and post-structuralist movements. Foucault introduced the concept of heterotopias to the humanities. He defines them—in contrast to utopias—as sites “which somehow mirror and at the same time distort, unsettle or invert other spaces.” Examples include cemeteries, asylums, museums, gardens, prisons, fairs, and more.  

Suggested Activity: Have students read through the excerpt from Michel Foucault. How would they define a “heterotopia” in their own words? Can they think of spaces that they encounter that Foucault might consider “heterotopias?” Ask students to discuss how gardens fit Foucault’s definition of heterotopia using their own words. Could any garden be a heterotopia according to Foucault? 

Now have students read the two excerpts from Blume Lempel’s short story. Ask students whether they consider Betty’s and Mrs. Zagretti’s neighboring gardens a heterotopia? Why or why not? How do their gardens differ from their domestic spaces? How do their gardens facilitate their interactions? Why is it that the women can bond across their gardens but not inside their homes?

Sources: “Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias,” Michel Foucault, trans. Jay Miskowiec in Architecture /Mouvement/ Continuité (October 1984), 3, 4, 6.

Blume Lempel, Oedipus in Brooklyn and Other Stories, trans. Ellen Cassedy and Yermiyahu Ahron Taub (Takoma Park, MD: Mandel Vilar Press & Dryad Press, 2016).