Utopologies.

Against a backdrop of nostalgia for a lost utopia, the paper adopts the standpoint that utopia has been achieved. Yet its accomplishment serves only to place the utopian imaginary in question. The basic plotline concerns utopia's entrapment behind the mirror, and the consequences that ensue from the subsequent implosion of the real and the imaginary. Reflecting on Baudrillard's association of utopia with the figure of Lichtenberg's knife, as well as Mann's assimilation of the utopic to the neutral, the paper examines the relations between the real, the symbolic, and the imaginary with respect to utopian thought and characterises the achievement of a minimal utopia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]