Geocriticism and Spatial Literary Studies (New Book Series) (original) (raw)
Related papers
2015
This interview with Dr. Robert T. Tally Jr. (associate professor of English at Texas State University) aims to highlight the strong interrelation between literature and space from the starting point of Geocriticism. With this term, which was coined to define a new discipline able to interact with “literary studies, geography, urbanism and architecture” (Tally 2011: xiv), in fact, Tally offers a theoretical basis for spatiality in relation to literature.
TO DRAW A MAP IS TO TELL A STORY”: INTERVIEW WITH DR. ROBERT T. TALLY JR. ON GEOCRITICISM
This interview with Dr. Robert T. Tally Jr. (associate professor of English at Texas State University) aims to highlight the strong interrelation between literature and space from the starting point of Geocriticism. With this term, which was coined to define a new discipline able to interact with “literary studies, geography, urbanism and architecture” (Tally 2011: xiv), in fact, Tally offers a theoretical basis for spatiality in relation to literature.
Geocriticism: Real and Fictional Spaces
2011
Although time traditionally dominated the perspectives of the humanities and social sciences, space has reasserted itself in the contexts of postmodernity, postcolonialism, and globalization. Today, a number of emerging critical discourses connect geography, architecture, and environmental studies, among others to literature, film, and the mimetic arts. Bertrand Westphal'sGeocriticism explores these diverse fields, examines various theories of space and place, and proposes a new critical practice suitable for understanding our spatial condition today. Drawing on a wide array of theoretical and literary resources from around the globe and from antiquity to the present, Westphal argues for a geocritical approach to literary and cultural studies. This volume is an indispensible touchstone for those interested in the interactions between literature and space.
A large number of works have been devoted to studying the inclusion of literature in space and the representation of places in literary texts. This interest in space issues seems to fit in both the evolution of literary genres and the development of artistic practices related to the creation of literary maps. This last aspect is one of the most interesting themes in the field of Geocriticism, transdisciplinary and applicable in both the human and physical sciences, in this specific case to the American crime fiction. Contemporary readers are more than ever sensitive to the “effects of reality and fiction” produced by the new American crime fiction, and this effect is palpable in Galveston, Nic Pizzolatto’s debut novel. In this paper, I propose to analyze the symbolic and aesthetic functions of places in the novel and to trace on a map the locations and the routes of the characters, but also the socio-cultural and political topics that characterize part of the American territory today. The map can be considered a pattern of representation of reality, able “to stage” or to provide imaginary solutions. The map shows cognitive operations, a system of deployable networks in space and it is deeply linked to the territory, becoming strictly geo-graphical .