ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the division of spirit and matter which is perceived by many feminist theorists to lie at the heart of the Western philosophical tradition. I am concerned here with an exploration and assessment of the various ways in which writers of feminist utopian fiction and theory have attempted to transgress and reconceptualize or re-present the historically dominant relation between spirit and matter, body and mind. These attempts are connected to contemporary debates within feminism regarding the tension between the needs, on the one hand, to develop a coherent position of enunciation and, on the other hand, to respect diversity.1
