Can Madness be Utopic? Analyzing Utopias through Madness as Political Praxis

Abstract

The paper contends that madness can be used as a way to engage with theories of utopia. The author draws upon their own autoethnographic experiences of madness and analyzes them through a Nietzschean perspective. They argue that utopic thought requires a breakage with normative interpretations of the State. Thereby, madness should be examined as a pathway to rupture with the normative world and thus develop a utopia. Utopias may require madness.