Biopolitics in Early Modern Utopian Literature

In this paper, I propose that biopolitical governing is a common theme in early 17th century utopian literature. I approach the topic by performing a close reading of four prominent utopias of the era, namely, Tommaso Campanella’s City of the Sun, Johann Valentin Andreae’s Christianopolis, Robert Burton’s utopian fragment "Utopia of mine owne," and Francis Bacon’s posthumous New Atlantis. These works appear to contain notable biopolitical interventions to concerns such as sexual intercourse, marriage, procreation, health, physical fitness, nutrition, hygiene, and even "race." Furthermore, similar instances of biopolitical governing can also be found from sources predating the 17th century, more specifically, Plato’s proto-utopian Republic and Thomas More’s Utopia, which is often seen as the first proper utopian work. Underscoring the biopolitical throughline in early modern utopias and beyond allows me to propose a twofold contribution. On the one hand, this finding point to a novel, biopolitical reading of utopian literature. I argue that biopolitics and utopia are connected and that it is virtually impossible to imagine a utopian work without any biopolitical relevance – perhaps because the optimization of life appears to be one of the keys to both utopia and especially biopolitics. On the other hand, the finding allows for a new way of approaching the ongoing discussion regarding the genealogy of biopolitics and whether its emergence ought to be dated back further than Michel Foucault presumed in his forceful yet brief analyses during the 1970s.