Spatiality's Mirrors: Reflections on Literary Cartography

Palgrave Macmillan eBooks, 2014

This essay appears in "Space, Time and the Limits of Human Understanding", Eds. Wuppuluri, Shyam, Ghirardi, Giancarlo.

The International Encyclopedia of Geography. Eds. Douglas Richardson et al. Wiley Publishers.hardson,, 2020

Literary cartography is the graphic representation of the spatial configuration of the world represented by literary texts. This representation can take many forms, depending on the relation of the textual world to the real world: annotating real-world maps when the setting corresponds to real-world locations; augmenting real-world maps with fictional toponyms, in the case of mixed, real-imaginary geographies; and drawing maps entirely based on textual data in the case of purely imaginary storyworlds such as those of fairy tales and fantasy. This entry examines the various purposes of literary mapping, the genetic relations between texts and maps (does the map precede, follow, or assist the writing of the text?), and the possible identities of map-makers (author, editor, reader). It also considers metaphorical interpretations of the notion of map, according to which the text itself, rather than its graphic representation, fulfills a cartographic function.

Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, 2005

Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 2018

My article investigates the manifold interactions between textual and diagrammatic elements. First, it outlines the changes in literary and cultural studies in the wake of the so-called ‘topographical turn,’ which have made possible the identification of certain cartographic practices as cultural techniques. Second, it discusses Friedrich Kittler’s idea of literature as a cultural technique itself, and considers how this concept can be reconciled with the topographical turn. Third, it analyses a handful of cartographic techniques employed in narratives and argues for a field of scriptural operations that provide a common ground for jointly reading maps and novels. Fourth, it carries out a reading of Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow which focuses on how the diagrammatic inscription of the V2 rocket and its arc condition both the protagonists’ movement on the novel’s plane and the map-making instances in the narrative. Fifth and finally, it points out why Pynchon’s work might be con...

Answering the call to reflect on the definition of literary space and how it relates to the actual world, this brief paper focuses on one of the practices through which this space is engaged. More specifically, this paper conceives of literary space as a mobile category that materialises at the intersection of author, text and reader-a category shaped by the cominginto-being of these intersections. Ultimately, a theory of literary space requires (among other things) an account of the manifold practices (whether performed by authors or readers) that provide meaning, the core of analysis.

Literary Geographies, 2019

’Non-representational geography’ was launched by Nigel Thrift as an umbrella term implying dissatisfaction with the dominant methodological implementation of cultural geographies, the lack of methodological innovativeness and methodological conservatism (see Thrift 2000; 2007). Instead of spatial representations, Thrift argued, geographers should pay attention to the liveliness and performativity of space, with new creative methodologies enabling a grasp of the basic essence of the (post)modern world, ‘the flow of events’ and ‘spaces of the now’. Basing his criticism on post-structuralist theories, Thrift argued that space is not a stable social construction, but complicated, multidimensional and constantly in motion. According to Anderson and Harrison (2010: 15) ‘non-representational theory may be characterised by an attention to being-in and being-of relation’.

2021

The relations between literature and mapping have long been an area of interest among researchers in social sciences and humanities. From the mid-twentieth century, in particular, technological advancements in cartography and the emergence of humanistic geography have transformed literary mapping into an enthralling interdisciplinary field: Literary Geography. In this line, this study aims to provide a critical overview of the role and increasing significance of maps and mapping in literary criticism through a humanistic perspective. The study places a special emphasis on humanistic geography and argues that, along with the notable developments in cartography, humans' experience of space and place, as well as their distinctive navigation and cognitive skills, have contributed considerably to the development of literary geography and cognitive mapping which provide new perspectives on understanding the various ways authors, readers and critics experience, view or represent spatiality in literature and literary studies. In this respect, the article outlines a theoretical and historical approach to the growing interdisciplinary research carried out on spatiality, mapping and literature since the 1960s and presents notable examples regarding the use of maps and mapping in imaginative narratives and critical works. Furthermore, the present work contends that the progress of literary cartography and cognitive mapping in the digital era provides new opportunities for digital humanities by generating spatial/visual representations of complicated human senses, feelings and moods associated with particular real/imaginary spaces, places or landscapes used in narratives.

مجلة بحوث کلیة الآداب . جامعة المنوفیة, 2019

Geography and literature are impressed by their respective disciplinary cultures. However, they witness the emergence of contact zones that subvert the boundaries caused by the cultural divide between these two discrete disciplines. The paper discusses five encounters emerged in the wake of the spatial turn in the 1990s: geography's literature, narrative cartography, geocriticism, geo-poetics, and eco-criticism. The-the map and the text‖ is a spatial trope that becomes a diegetic paradigm, a structuring agent, and a signifying element in literary theory. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to illuminate the methods, objectives, divergences and convergences of these interdisciplinary encounters. Author's Bio-Note Wael M. Mustafa lectures in Literary Theory at Fayoum University, Egypt. His main research interests are in postmodern literary theory; postcolonial translation studies; literary journalism; eco-criticism; spatial literary theory; and Postpostmodern literary theory. Recent publications include a book entitled The Politics of Subversion (2010).

Literary authors have frequently called on elements of cartography to ground fictional space, to visualize sites, and to help readers get their bearings in the imaginative world of the text. Today, the convergence of digital mapping and globalization has spurred a cartographic turn in literature. This book gathers leading scholars to consider the relationship of literature and cartography. Generously illustrated with full-color maps and visualizations, it offers the first systematic overview of an emerging approach to the study of literature. The literary map is not merely an illustrative guide but represents a set of relations and tensions that raise questions about representation, fiction, and space. Is literature even mappable? In exploring the cartographic components of literature, the contributors have not only brought literary theory to bear on the map but have also enriched the vocabulary and perspectives of literary studies with cartographic terms. After establishing the theoretical and methodological terrain, they trace important developments in the history of literary cartography, considering topics that include Homer and Joyce, Goethe and the representation of nature, and African cartographies. Finally, they consider cartographic genres that reveal the broader connections between texts and maps, discussing literary map genres in American literature and the coexistence of image and text in early maps. When cartographic aspirations outstripped factual knowledge, mapmakers turned to textual fictions. literary studies/geography 9 780262 036740 9 0 0 0 0 Anders Engberg-Pedersen is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Southern Denmark and the author of Empire of Chance: The Napoleonic Wars and the Disorder of Things.