Topophrenia

Robert T. Tally

Description

What is our place in the world, and how do we inhabit, understand, and represent this place to others? Topophrenia gathers essays by Robert Tally that explore the relationship between space, place, and mapping, on the one hand, and literary criticism, history, and theory on the other. The book provides an introduction to spatial literary studies, exploring in detail the theory and practice of geocriticism, literary cartography, and the spatial humanities more generally. The spatial anxiety of disorientation and the need to know one's location, even if only subconsciously, is a deeply felt and shared human experience. Building on Yi Fu Tuan's "topophilia" (or love of place), Tally instead considers the notion of "topophrenia" as a simultaneous sense of place-consciousness coupled with a feeling of disorder, anxiety, and "dis-ease." He argues that no effective geography could be complete without also incorporating an awareness of the lonely, loathsome, or frightening spaces that condition our understanding of that space. Tally considers the tension between the objective ordering of a space and the subjective ways in which narrative worlds are constructed. Narrative maps present a way of understanding that seems realistic but is completely figurative. So how can these maps be used to not only understand the real world but also to put up an alternative vision of what that world might otherwise be? From Tolkien to Cervantes, Borges to More, Topophrenia provides a clear and compelling explanation of how geocriticism, the spatial humanities, and literary cartography help us to narrate, represent, and understand our place in a constantly changing world.

Acknowledgements

Introduction: The Cartographic Imperative

Part I: Place in Geocritical Theory and Practice

1. Topophrenia

2. Introducing Geocriticism

3. Geocritical Situations

Part II: Spatial Representation in Narrative

4. The Mise-en-Abyme of Literary Cartography

5. The Space of the Novel

6. Theatrum Geographicum

Part III: Fantasy and the Spatial Imagination

7. Adventures in Literary Cartography

8. In the Suburbs of Amaurotum

9. Beyond the Flaming Walls of the World

Conclusion: A Map of the Pyrenees

Bibliography

Index

Sujets

• Literary Criticism
• 20th Century
• Modern
• criticism
• Modern history
• General officer
• Cultural studies
• Literary theory
• General
• Obermodern-Zutzendorf

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 09 novembre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253037688
• Langue: English

Extrait

TOPOPHRENIA
THE SPATIAL HUMANITIES
David J. Bodenhamer, John Corrigan, and Trevor M. Harris, editors
TOPOPHRENIA
Place, Narrative, and the Spatial Imagination
Robert T. Tally Jr.
Indiana University Press
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
2019 by Robert T. Tally Jr.
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Cataloging information is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-0-253-03770-1 (hardback)
ISBN 978-0-253-03766-4 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-0-253-03769-5 (web PDF)
1 2 3 4 5 23 22 21 20 19 18
For Bertrand Westphal
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Cartographic Imperative
Part I: Place in Geocritical Theory and Practice
1 Topophrenia
2 Introducing Geocriticism
3 Geocritical Situations
Part II: Spatial Representation in Narrative
4 The Mise en Abyme of Literary Cartography
5 The Space of the Novel
6 Theatrum Geographicum
Part III: Fantasy and the Spatial Imagination
7 Adventures in Literary Cartography
8 In the Suburbs of Amaurotum
9 Beyond the Flaming Walls of the World
Conclusion: A Map of the Pyrenees
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
I T IS FITTING that, in the acknowledgments section of a book about space, place, and mapping in literature, I should be reminded of the many places that have fired my own imagination and contributed to my thinking, teaching, and writing. As noted throughout this book, with due deference to the brilliant cultural geographer Yi-Fu Tuan, places are endowed with meanings, imbued with subjective experience, and perfectly suited to the sort of interpretative practices typically associated with literature and literary studies.
Perhaps I should begin with my current location at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas, a place that has enabled me to engage in teaching US and world literature, literary criticism, and theory while maintaining an active program of scholarly activity and professional service. I am very appreciative of the academic and social community here, and I would like to thank many individuals who have contributed to my well-being while living here. First, I want to thank Michael Hennessy, English professor and dean of the College of Liberal Arts, a great champion of literature and of the humanities, who has been an enthusiastic supporter of my work ever since I came to Texas. Next, I am grateful to my students and colleagues at the university, including Devin Baumann, Yasmine Beale-Rivaya, Alejandra Benavides, Bianca Beronio, Flore Chevaillier, Paul Cohen, Taylor Cortesi, Doug Dorst, Geneva Gano, Katrina Goudey, Nancy Grayson, Matt Greengold, Chad Hammett, Craig Hanks, Lucy Harney, Ogaga Ifowodo, Catherine Jaffe, Katie Kapurch, Kitty Ledbetter, Dan Lochman, Whitney May, Kate McClancy, Carolos Abreu Mendoza, Amanda Meyer, Susan Morrison, Marilynn Olson, Cecily Parks, Jessica Pliley, Rebecca Raphael, Benjamin Reed, Shaula Rocha, Deanna Rodriguez, Teya Rosenberg, Aimee Roundtree, Thais Rutledge, Leah Schwebel, Jon Marc Smith, Victoria Smith, Susie Tilka, Nancy Wilson, Sarah Youree, and Taylor Zavala, among others with whom I have discussed these and similar matters over the years. I would like to thank the English Department staff, especially Karen Bryson, and student workers for their help and good cheer. Above all, I thank Reiko Graham for her love and support and the Britches sisters, along with Steve French, for keeping things just unpredictable enough to keep me on my toes.
Although most of the writing of this book was accomplished in San Marcos, my thoughts on these matters have developed and been shaped by my time in many other places I have lived, including Durham, Pittsburgh, and New York. I am extremely grateful to the many friends and advisors in these locales without whom I would not have become the critic or person that I am. These include, without limit, Susan Andrade, Jonathan Arac, John Beverly, Paul A. Bov , Jyotirmoy Banerjee, Jimmy Bridgeforth, Tor Brodtkorb, Susie Bryant, Rodney Draughn, Christopher Edwards, Josefina Melgar, Derek Michalak, Toril Moi, Michael V. Moses, Valentin Mudimbe, Mitch Payton, Charles Rhine, Kirstin Ringelberg, Rick Roderick, James Rolleston, Kenneth Surin, Phillip Wegner, and Holland West. I am especially grateful to my old literature professor, Fredric Jameson, whose example of close reading combined with historical and philosophical contextualization continually inspires me, and whose conception of cognitive mapping, in various forms and incarnations, serves as the basis for my understanding of literary cartography in theory and practice. This volume is dedicated to Bertrand Westphal, my friend and fellow traveler in geocritical exploration.
Many of the ideas or arguments made in this book were first presented at conferences, and I am extremely grateful to the organizers, fellow presenters, and above all the audiences from whom I gained invaluable feedback and encouragement. Among many others, I would like to thank the English Language and Literature Association of Korea, the English Department of the University of Zurich (UZH), the Department of Religious Studies and the Humanities Center at Stanford University, the Italian Graduate Association at Rutgers University, the English Departments at Simon Fraser University and the University of South Florida, the International Studies program at Texas State University, the organizers of the 2015 Litt rature et g ographie: l criture de l espace travers les ges conference in Lyon, France, and the organizers of the Congresso Internacional Geopo ticas 2017: Espa os Liter rios e Territ rios Cr ticos , held at the University of Porto, Portugal. I am also grateful to the people involved with my panels at conferences of the Society for Novel Studies, the Modern Language Association, the Modernist Studies Association, the American Comparative Literature Association, and the South Central Modern Language Association.
Among the many other individuals who have contributed ideas, support, or encouragement as I worked on this project, I would like to thank David Alworth, Ian Balfour, Herman Beavers, Alexander Beecroft, Ian Buchanan, Eric Bulson, Gerry Canavan, Andrew Cole, Thadious Davis, Colin Dayan, Jeffrey Di Leo, Caroline Edwards, Stuart Elden, Amy J. Elias, Lauren Elkin, Tom Eyers, Molly Gaudry, David Greven, Geosi Gyasi, Dan Hartley, Hsuan Hsu, Hyeryung Hwang, Jeanne-Marie Jackson, Karen Jacobs, Junyoung Ver nica Kim, Min-Jung Kim, Youngmin Kim, Adeline Koh, Elizabeth Kollmann, Anna Kornbluh, Cassandra Laity, Catherine Liu, Sophia McClennen, Peta Mitchell, Christian Moraru, Daniel Nutters, Daniel O Hara, Firat Oruc, David Palumbo-Liu, Joshua Parker, Emmanuelle Peraldo, Ato Quayson, Sangeeta Ray, Johannes Riquet, Jae H. Roe, Robert Rouse, Emilio Sauri, Ben Schreier, Henry Schwarz, David Shumway, William V. Spanos, Hortense Spillers, Mads Rosendahl Thomsen, Amy Wells, Marta Werner, Bertrand Westphal, Jenny Wills, and Gena Zuroski. While completing this book, I had the good fortune to be part of an international team put together by Professor Ying Liu at Nankai University, and our project, American Literary Geography, has received funding from China s National Social Science Foundation (project number 16ZDA197). I am grateful to Professor Liu and my fellow researchers, and I look forward to continuing my work with them. I have also been lucky to work with Professor Ying Fang of Ningbo University, with whom I am collaborating on a project titled A Study in Spatial Literary Criticism (project number 17BZW057), supported by China s National Social Science Foundation. This book may be considered as work related to both those projects, in which I am honored to take part.
This book contains material that has been previously published; in nearly all cases, however, such material has been revised, expanded, or otherwise modified. As such, this is not exactly the collection of essays I had originally intended, since I found that my earlier versions were, in one way or another, inadequate to the task of the present volume. Although some chapters may stand alone more effectively than others, I propose that the whole may be more useful, if not greater, than the sum of its parts, as the chapters trace a certain, more or less logical trajectory through the literary, critical, and theoretical territories to be explored.
Chapter 1 contains material from Topophrenia: The Place of the Subject, Reconstruction 14.4 (2014) and Mapping Narratives, in my Literary Cartographies: Spatiality, Representation, and Narrative (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). Chapter 2 includes language from Situating Geocriticism, American Book Review 37.6 (September-October 2016); The Timely Emergence of Geocriticism, in Bertrand Westphal s Geocriticism: Real and Fictional Places (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011); A Geocriticism of the Worldly World, in Westphal s The Plausible World: A Geocritical Approach to Space, Place, and Maps (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013); and On Geocriticism, in my Geocritical Explorations: Space, Place, and Mapping in Literary and Cultural Studies (New York: Palgrave M