Paper published in the February 2010 edition of Philosophy Now magazine.
Below are the slides of the presentation I gave at the Philosophy for All Kant’s Cave. My aim was to introduce the concept of Heterotopia by Michel Foucault using the example of Walt Disney World. It allowed me to dig into Post-Modernist philosophy, involving philosophers such as Jean Baudrillard and Umberto Eco.
Around 50 people attended the conference. The Q&A session raised interesting questions. Is Walt Disney World a true symbol of the free market, knowing that everything in the parks is orchestrated by a central authority? Should we study the culture of Disney differently than the more traditional ones coming from theatre and literature for example?
References
Foucault’s Heterotopia: The “Other” Spaces Between What is Real and Utopian
“Faith in Fakes” by Umberto Eco
Simulacra and Simulation, Jean Baudrillard
Vinyl Leaves, Stephen M. Fjellman
The Rise of Heterotopia
Walt Disney’s original EPCOT concept: a commodified Utopia