Literary Geography

Depuis quelques années, on peut noter une nouvelle focalisation des études littéraires sur les questions de spatialité. Cet intérêt s'inscrit dans la continuité d'un « spatial turn » qui a profondément bouleversé les sciences humaines -l'histoire au premier plan, l'histoire de l'art (ARTL@S: http://www.artlas.ens.fr) et l'histoire littéraire (Ein literarischer Atlas Europas : http://www.literaturatlas.eu) beaucoup plus récemment.

My contribution today is titled Walking with buildings. The flâneur and the (im)mobilizing power of non-human narrators and aims to reflect on the contrasting encounter between the apparent immobility of buildings, as non-human inert bodies, and the peculiar mobility of the flâneur. I said apparent immobility because my provocation starts precisely from the idea that buildings, despite their inertia, have an intrinsic power to mobilize our gaze and move our feet: my proposal is to imagine them as non-human narrators that invite the flâneur to move in the city both vertically, discovering changes in time, and horizontally, exploring connections in space. Furthermore, as (im)mobile concrete archives, buildings invite us to reflect once again on the peculiarity of the flâneur’s mobility, which is made of a constant alternation between walking and resting, listening and writing practices. Even if always on the move, the flâneur constantly takes time for slow practices like resting, reflect and writing, thus resisting through his own body to the rapid flows of contemporary cities and neoliberal rhythms.
I will explore these suggestions by proposing three examples: first, a graphic novel by Will Eisner published in 1987 and titled "The building"; second, "Living with buildings and walking with ghosts" the latest work by the well-known psychogeographer Iain Sinclair, which appeared in 2018 and became also an exhibition; third, a personal flânerie in the Brutalist Robin Hood Gardens Estate, that I’ve realised in February 2019 while I was living in Tower Hamlets, East London. Following Sinclair’s exploration, I will focus on brutalist estates as architectural bodies that have peculiar stories to tell thanks, to their controversial and critical position in contemporary London as in many other cities. But, How can we listen to voices of buildings, interpreting them as non-human narrators that keep stories hidden in them? Furthermore, “is there a link between the walking and storytelling practice of the flâneur and the encounter with the (im)mobilities
of buildings?”

To test her hypothesis about 'a kernel of universal human experience ' in Hamlet, Laura Bohannan (1966) shares the story with the Tiv people of southeastern Nigeria, where she was doing her anthropological fieldwork. Apart from the general difficulty of translation across two very different languages, she is also faced with the almost impossible task of invoking the cultural and ritual background of English society -the birthplace of the play -to make it comprehensible for her audience. At every moment the story is appropriated by the audience within the larger sociocultural landscape where the it is narrated, even against the wishes of the narrator (and by implication the author). This is how the audience responds when told that Claudius marries his dead brother's wife and steals his throne: 'He did well,' the old man beamed and announced to the others, 'I told you that if we knew more about Europeans, we would find they really were very like us. In our country also,' he added to me, 'the younger brother marries the elder brother's widow and becomes the father of his children. (29)(30) Bohannan is completely baffled by the appropriation of her story. Interestingly, the universalist claims on both sides convey an ethnocentric desire of appropriation which predicates on a simultaneous production and conditional erasure of difference. The Tiv elders further ask her whether Hamlet's father and his brother had the same mother? Bohannan reminisce, 'Rather uncertainly I said that I thought they had the same mother, but I wasn't sure-the story didn't say. The old man told me severely that these genealogical details made all the difference and that when I got home I must ask the elders about it' (30). In the very act of being told, the story acquires a new iteration and gets appropriated in its new world. The meaning of the story depends not only on what the story narrates but also on the contextual geographies of power and constraints which resist, appropriate, and ascribe meanings to the text.

This short piece explores the social and situated practices of collectively negotiating speculative fiction over video conferencing software across different time zones. It builds on recent calls for a reinvigorated cultural sociology of reading that is attentive to how ‘the very exposure through fictional texts to the plurality of the human condition, its vulnerability and its strengths, opens up for readers the possibility of conceiving and making sense of change in themselves and their situation’ (Thumala Olave, 2018: 449). Through an attentiveness to the knowledge production of readers, it is a modest addition to recent work which seeks to explore the relationship between speculative climate fiction and political change (Milkoreit 2016; Schneider-Mayerson, 2018; Harris, 2020; Yazell 2020). In exploring how readers seek out and engage with utopian and critically dystopian fictions that nourish the capacity for individual and collective resistance and struggle, this piece - and the wider project it is part of - seeks to ground some of the claims made by science fiction scholars, about the radical potential of sf (see Moylan, 2000, Jameson, 2005) by attending qualitatively to ordinary reading practices. I cautiously suggest that this creative, collaborative, caring sf reading practice constitutes a form of ambiguously hopeful sustenance. It builds on recent research with online sf reading communities which is interested in how reading and discussing speculative fiction online is generative for collectively negotiating radically altered presents and futures (see Chambers and Garforth, 2020; Iossifidis 2018 a, b and Iossifiids and Garforth, forthcoming).

In fantasy literature, the setting is as important to the story as are character and plot. This article demonstrates how topofocal (place-focused) perspectives yield valuable insights into various fantasy texts. The examples include discussions on how the nature/culture relationship is tied to the ideological centre in Charles de Lint’s Newford stories; how a careful examination of Sauron’s land in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings reveals how the text views the nature of evil; and how the structure of the land develops along with the stories in the Mythago Wood novels by Robert Holdstock. In a genre where there are no limits to the shape a setting can take, the central question must be: Why is it shaped the way it is?

This article discusses how utopian and anti-utopian literatures offer alternate visions to find connecting links between the control of space, power and happiness. The focus is on three classics of utopian and dystopian literatures: Thomas More's Utopia (1516), Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932), and George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). Through the analysis of these works it is pondered how utopian and anti-utopian societies offer freedom or restrict inhabitants moving and acting in their worlds, and how this is portrayed as a means to measure the quality of life. The article contributes to socially critical literary geography by envisioning various options to imagine the relationship of space and power. The starting presumption in the article is that both utopian and anti-utopian imaginations suggest that freedom to use space is a key factor when defining human happiness.

John Burnside won the prestigious T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry in 2012. His work is renowned for its interest in ecology and yet it is not distracted from a post-industrial landscape that informs a philosophical lyrical mode. Such lyricism is the bedrock for an inquiry into the question of history alongside both the spiritually inflected depiction of nature, and an interest in relationships on various scales between various agents over time. Humans, flora and fauna are consolidated into ideas of change and the making of home (or temporary residency on a changing earth), which draw from may sources, particularly British mythology, American modernism and European culture and philosophy with peculiar ecological resonance.

Drawing on the expertise of leading researchers from around the globe, this pioneering collection of essays explores how geospatial technologies are revolutionizing the discipline of literary studies. The book offers the first intensive examination of digital literary cartography, a feld whose recent and rapid development has yet to be coherently analysed. This collection not only provides an authoritative account of the current state of the feld, but also informs a new generation of digital humanities scholars about the critical and creative potentials of digital literary mapping. The book showcases the work of exemplary literary mapping projects and provides the reader with an overview of the tools, techniques and methods those projects employ.

ABSTRACT
This article investigates how Gabriele D’Annunzio’s The Triumph of
Death brings together Nietzsche’s ideas and Wagner’s music and
interweaves them with the motifs of literary Decadence and the
author’s own particular sexual politics. The novel is an experimental
text striving to be a Gesemtkunstswerk, an integrated work that
incorporates music, painting, poetry, regional folklore, and private
thoughts about personal and national power. I discuss the novel’s
themes of violent sexuality and the anxiety of powerlessness and
explore their implications for the fascist political aesthetics in which
D’Annunzio played a pioneering role.

Il saggio esamina l’interesse di Calvino per aspetti epistemologici e metodologici della geografia tra anni Sessanta e Ottanta. A partire dalle discussioni teoriche legate al progetto della rivista “Alì Babà”, viene poi indagato l’apporto della disciplina alla costruzione di un metodo d’indagine della realtà e allo sviluppo di una peculiare “narrazione geografica” calviniana, che coinvolge testi narrativi, saggistici e autobiografici.

This essay considers Calvino’s interest in epistemological and methodological aspects of geography between the sixties and the eighties. Starting from the theoretical debate which accompanied the project of the review “Alì Babà”, the article discusses the contribution of the discipline to the construction of a method to investigate reality and to the development of a “geographical narrative” in Calvino’s fictional, essayistic and autobiographical writings.

The mind of Neil Gaiman works in mysterious ways, specifically when we consider how space is employed in his works. The seamless juxtaposition of real and imaginary places that tend to overlap, create various spaces that are not simply settings where events unfold, but are almost lifelike characters in their own right that directly affect the actions of the characters as well as the production of the narrative.

Notes:
(1)The title should read "Inverted Spaces: Rising from London Below and the Dark Lands in Neverwhere and MirrorMask"
(2) Typo on pg. 142, actual line should read: "Whether creator or destroyer, it is Helena in both aspects that manipulates the topography."
(3) The very last sentence of the article "This particular quote appears verbatim twice in Neil Gaiman's bibliography ...." was intended as an endnote, The proper ending is "...where the characters are left with the potential to thrive."

The entry begins with a definition of geography and with a description of what the discipline shares with the other social sciences and what makes it distinctive among them. Terminological clarifications are provided with regard to the relationship between human geography and physical geography, and between human geography and urban geography. After a brief history and overview of human geography’s engagement with social theory, the entry offers a discussion of the politicization of contemporary human geography and of how this phenomenon is reflected in theory building and concept development.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118430873.est0464

The novel 1984, George Orwell's nightmarish vision of totalitarianism published after the Second World War, remains relevant in the twenty-first century. Orwell's concerns regarding the abuse of power, the denial of self, and the eradication of both past and future continue to resonate in contemporary discussions of politics and society. Geographers, however, have directed minimal attention to the spatiality embedded within 1984. Accordingly, in this paper I examine the theoretical implications of space, resistance and discipline as manifest in the novel. Drawing on the theoretical insights of Michel Foucault, I detail how the spatial and temporal control of everyday activities serves to discipline spaces within a totalitarian society. Moreover, I suggest that 1984 illustrates how the production of knowledge through the act of writing may forge spaces of resistance within disciplined spaces. This paper contributes, therefore, in two areas, these being resistance geographies and fictive geographies.

A short position paper outlining some of the key features and concerns of this emergent interdisciplinary field. Published in issue 1 of Literary Geographies, a peer-reviewed, open access e-journal: http://literarygeographies.net/index.php/LitGeogs/issue/view/2

The Routledge Handbook of Literature and Space provides a comprehensive critical overview of the  latest  advancements  in  the  arena  of  spatial  literary  studies.  Its  primary  questions  move  along the avenues opened up for literary criticism by the ‘spatial turn’ in cultural studies and the humanities in general. The investigations illuminate key concerns regarding the reciprocal relationships between spatiality and the human senses, their production of spatial and social relations,  as  well  as  an  interpretation  of  space  as  a  fluid  dimension  constantly  in  a  state  of  becoming. The contributions present thoroughgoing analyses of a wide array of literary texts from diverse historical and geographical settings, and frequently evidence the profound impact that  recent  phenomenological  and  New  Materialist  bents  have  exerted  on  literary  study.  Expansive  in  scope  and  content,  yet  incisive  and  approachable,  the  volume  should  find  both  novices and experts, from the full range of disciplines that it engages with, among its reading public.

This book provides a political and geographical history of how boglands (or peat ‘bogs’) are represented in modern and contemporary Irish literature and culture from the 1880s to the present. Bogs are more than ubiquitous landforms in Ireland. They function as a kind of narrative that reveals some of the potentially unanswered questions in an Irish literary geo-history, particularly leading up to and during the Land Wars of the 1880s, Irish War of Independence (1919-1921), ‘Troubles’ (1960s and 1970s), Celtic Tiger (1990s and 2000s), and into the current environmental crisis. The overlap of the ‘postcolonial’ and the ‘Gothic’ – across ecological, spatial, social, and gender approaches – serves as an effective way to address some historical layers and apparent contradictions in literary representations of bogs in Ireland. Drawing on a range of Irish writers, including Bram Stoker, Frank O’Connor, Sean O’Faolain, Daniel Corkery, Seamus Heaney, Marina Carr, Deirdre Kinahan, Patrick McCabe, and Tim Robinson, Contentious Terrains ultimately argues that the destabilising and haunting capacities of the bog provide a space to explore historically fraught colonial tensions and social struggles through the Gothic form. It employs a cross-disciplinary scope, examining an assortment of Irish writers in the literary genres of fiction, poetry, drama, and non-fiction, thus testifying to the pervasiveness and range of the bog’s allure in Irish culture.

This study aims at using literary mapping as a part of the interpretation of literary texts rather than using it as a metaphor. Spatial and temporal structures of a plot and the internal logic of narrative highlight interrelations between time and place in literary works since both history and geography shape the narrative structure of the novel. Mai ve Siyah (1896-97; “The Blue and the Black”) raises major questions about the relations of time, space and (Imperial) power, and how they influence literary forms and styles. Mapping Istanbul in the novel allows a deeper comprehension of the condition of art and literature, the press, and the publication culture in the Ottoman Empire in the late nineteenth century. The depiction of Babıâli Street reveals its major position as the cultural centre for the press, publishing and literary circles in the capital. The novel also portrays the physical and intellectual environment of Tepebaşı and Beyoğlu districts and highlights the Western culture of Istanbul. The timeline of the plot denies linearity and it is dynamic with a retrospective narrative. Mapping representational (and non-represented) spaces in the novel further help us get a better grip on the wider implications of the commodification of art and literature on the period.

The project of literary cartography is fraught with peril, as the urge to produce accurate maps confronts the specters of not only the impossible, but the undesirable. As with Borges’s fabulous geographers who developed a perfectly useless map coextensive with the territory it purported to depict, such mimetic scrupulosity thwarts the project of literary cartography as well. The hero’s itinerary is traced along the map that is formed, at least in part, by those itinerant tracings, while the epic narrative gives shape to the world’s spaces. Like Odysseus, the bard who would sing the world into being must connect the itinerary to the map, blending lived experience with that imaginary geography to form a rhapsodic totality. Or like Dante, who pauses to study geography in the midst of his own infernal trajectory, the literary cartographer must construct an architectonic by which the otherworldly system can make sense, such that the spaces revealed are also the spaces produced in the narrative. Or like Ahab, whose relentless pursuit of the “inscrutable thing” at the heart of the white whale inscribes his own mission with indelible markings, as his mapping project proves wholly reflexive. In all these ways, literary cartography represents and produces a world system for the reader to explore. Drawing upon key scenes from the Odyssey, the Inferno, and Moby-Dick for this essay, Tally reflects on literary cartography by examining the interrelations among the itinerary and the map, narrative and description, perception and abstraction, lived experience and the social totality.

This article demonstrates how we can gain critical insights into a fantasy world by reading its accompanying map, using Ben McSweeney's map from Brandon Sanderson's The Rithmatist as an example. An analysis of the map's topography, linguistic signs, and surround elements is carried out in terms of Denis Wood's proposition that all maps have authors, subjects, and themes. The results show that even without reference to the text, a map can comment on the fantasy world's technological level, its colonial history, and the central conflict of the story. Interpreting the map also invites a broader examination of the relationship between the fantastical and the actual.

Al menos desde el fin de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, una sólida preocupación por el espacio ha venido a alterar decisivamente la epistemología no solo de las Humanidades, sino también de las Ciencias, trazando un puente entre ambas. El presente artículo intenta esbozar una breve Historia del giro espacial en los estudios culturales y literarios, distinguiendo, como hace Franco Moretti, entre la Historia del análisis del espacio en la literatura y el de la literatura en el espacio. En ambas vertientes, la aportación de distintas escuelas y disciplinas francesas, encabezadas por nombres como Bachelard, Lefebvre, Foucault o, más recientemente, Westphal y Pageaux, ha sido reivindicada como decisiva por multitud de autores interesados en el desarrollo último del spatial turn. 
At least since the end of the Second World War, a strong concern for space has come to decisively alter not only the epistemology of the humanities, but also of sciences, drawing a bridge between the two. This paper attempts to outline a brief history of the spatial turn in cultural and literary studies, distinguishing between examining space in literature and literature in space, as Franco Moretti does. On both the contribution of various French schools and disciplines, led by names like Bachelard, Lefebvre, Foucault or, more recently, Westphal and Pageaux, has been claimed as crucial by many authors interested in the latest development of the spatial turn.

With numerous approaches to literary criticism, spatial analysis has often been trivialized. This position can be contested; however the status is verified by the scarcity of pertinent literature to be synthesized. Studies and articles focus more on the psychological, sociological, and anthropological dimensions-and also with formalism which only concerns the "literary devices" (Brewton) which is deemed to be problematic. In the PUP Professorial Chair Lecture Series which was inaugurated by Professor Jun Cruz Reyes, a highly acclaimed writer and literary scholar, it is emphasized that formalism has no place at this point in time because questions about the moral of the story, its summary, and all that has to do with form is not tantamount to understanding.

La comarca de Las Hurdes, situada al norte de la provincia de Cáceres (España), es uno de los rincones de Europa dotados de un mayor capital simbólico. Su historial cultural, su leyenda, da comienzo en tiempos de Lope de Vega y solo culmina con el siglo XX. La presente tesis doctoral pretende dar cuenta de los complejos discursos generados desde un territorio por el que han pasado artistas como Luis Buñuel, Miguel de Unamuno o el rey Alfonso XIII. Todos ellos contribuyeron a conformar una leyenda "negra" que, durante siglos, influyó en la propia autoimagen de los habitantes de la comarca, asociados indefectiblemente con el paradigma de la pobreza.

El aparato teórico de la presente tesis doctoral recurre a las herramientas de la literatura comparada (en concreto, las de la geosimbólica acuñada por Pageaux, con especial atención a la tematología, la imagología y la mitocrítica), pero también a las de los Estudios Culturales anglosajones de autores como Williams o Jameson. Otra influencia ineludible ha sido la del formalismo, presente en la Teoría del cronotopo de Bajtin o la cartografía literaria de Moretti.

Como indica su propio subtítulo, "La producción geosimbólica de Las Hurdes" se divide en tres partes. La primera da cuenta del entramado teórico arriba apuntado. La segunda pretende describir la geografía moral de la comarca, es decir, las distintas visiones generadas de la misma clasificadas por su sintonía con el ideario cristiano, estratificado en tres esferas: la del Paraíso, la del Purgatorio y la del Infierno. La esfera del Paraíso se divide a su vez en varias imágenes o cronotopos principales (Nuevo Mundo, Jardín, Idilio), así como las del Purgatorio (Desierto y Destierro) y el Infierno (Tierra sin pan, Bárbaro hurdano y Espejo). La tercera parte de este trabajo de investigación propone, por último, un proyecto web desde el que transferir todo el conocimiento acumulado al resto de la sociedad, concediendo una atención especial al potencial turístico-cultural de la comarca.

La conclusión fundamental de la presente tesis doctoral es que la leyenda de Las Hurdes (y este puede ser también su argumento principal) vino a intentar legitimar el abandono al que la Monarquía, el Estado y, finalmente, el Mercado sometieron a la comarca. Una mirada sobre el otro rural surgida desde la ciudad para paliar la violencia que, a menudo, se ejercía sobre él.

ÖZET
Sadece edebi değil; tarihî, sosyolojik, politik veya coğrafî özellikleriyle incelendiğinde edebi eserlerin pek çok farklı cephesi ortaya konulabilir. Özellikle kurgusal türlerde yazarın biyografisi ile anlatının kurgusal dünyası arasındaki paralellikleri ve kurgusal coğrafya ile gerçek coğrafya arasındaki izdüşümleri ortaya koymak, edebiyat incelemelerine önemli katkılar sağlayacaktır. Bu çalıĢmada 1952 ve 1957'de yayınlanmıĢ Dost ve Yaşamasız adlı öykü kitaplarında yer alan toplam 32 öyküden hareketle Vüs'at O. Bener'in öykücülüğünde mekânın kurgu içerisinde yeri ve bu ögenin olay örgüsü, kişiler, zaman ve anlatıcı gibi anlatı bileşenleri ile olan ilişkileri ortaya konulmaya çalışılmaktadır. Kurgusal coğrafya ile yazarın biyografik coğrafyası arasındaki paralelliklerin ortaya konulmasında disiplinler arası yöntemlerden de yararlanılan çalışmada, öykülerde kullanılan otobiyografik ögelerin sadece yazarın özyaşamından birtakım kesitler ve hatıralarla sınırlı kalmadığı; yaşanılan coğrafyaların da kurgusal dünyaya mekânsal zemin oluşturduğu sonucuna varılmıştır.
ABSTRACT
When literary works are analyzed not only as literary characteristics but also as sociological, political and linguistic geography, it can be betrayed its many different aspects. Especially, in fictional kinds; betraying the parallelism between author's biography and narration's fictional world and the projections between fictional linguistic geography and real geography will contribute to literature analysis considerably. In this work, it was tried to betray the place of the location in the fiction and its relations with the narration components as the story line, people, time and the narrator hence 32 stories in his Dost and YaĢamasız books published in 1952 and 1957. It was come to the conclusion that in this work which was benefited from the methods among disciplines in the betraying of the parallelism among fictional, biographic and physical geographies, the autobiographical items which the author used in his stories are not only limited with some sequences and memories from his private life but also his geographies which he lived, composed a spatial basic for the fictional world.

Puji syukur kami panjatkan kehadirat Allah SWT yang telah memberikan rahmat serta hidayah kepada kita semua, sehingga berkat Karunia-Nya kami dapat menyelesaikan makalah Mata Kuliah Geografi Sosial Budaya. Makalah ini berisikan tentang seluruh materi dari Geografi Sosial Budaya. Harapan kami, makalah ini dapat meningkatkan pemahaman kami akan ilmu-ilmu sosial budaya didalam masyarakat dan dapat diterapkannya dalam kehidupan sehari-hari. Tentunya dalam penyusunan makalah ini tidak terlepas dari berbagai pihak yang telah banyak membantu. Oleh karena itu kami mengucapkan terimakasih banyak kepada pihak yang telah membantu dalam menyelesaikan makalah ini. Kami menyadari bahwa makalah ini tidaklah sempurna, oleh karena itu kami menerima Kritik dan saran dari semua pihak yang bersifat membangun. Selalu kami harapkan demi kesempurnaan makalah ini serta guna penyempurnaan pembuatan makalah selanjutnya. Semoga makalah ini memberikan manfaat bagi kita semua.

Puji syukur kami panjatkan kehadirat Allah SWT yang telah memberikan rahmat serta hidayah kepada kita semua, sehingga berkat Karunia-Nya kami dapat menyelesaikan makalah Mata Kuliah Asesment Pembelajaran. Makalah ini berisikan tentang seluruh materi dari Asesment Pembelajaran. Harapan kami, makalah ini dapat meningkatkan pemahaman kami akan ilmu-ilmu sosial budaya didalam masyarakat dan dapat diterapkannya dalam kehidupan sehari-hari. Tentunya dalam penyusunan makalah ini tidak terlepas dari berbagai pihak yang telah banyak membantu. Oleh karena itu kami mengucapkan terimakasih banyak kepada pihak yang telah membantu dalam menyelesaikan makalah ini. Kami menyadari bahwa makalah ini tidaklah sempurna, oleh karena itu kami menerima Kritik dan saran dari semua pihak yang bersifat membangun. Selalu kami harapkan demi kesempurnaan makalah ini serta guna penyempurnaan pembuatan makalah selanjutnya. Semoga makalah ini memberikan manfaat bagi kita semua.

Scholars have long examined the relationship between literature and space, place, or mapping, but formal methods or disciplines for such work have only recently come into being. Particularly after what has been called the “spatial turn” in the humanities and social sciences, researchers from various academic and artistic disciplines have developed work in connection to such terms as literary geography, imaginative geography, geocriticism, geopoetics, the spatial humanities, geohumanities, and spatial literary studies, to name a few. Understandably, there would be a great deal of overlapping interest among these emerging practices or subfields, even if the aims and methods of each may vary, and practitioners of one form may find it desirable to distinguish their field from other related ones. Recently, a leading proponent of literary geography has sharply criticized the conflation of that field with spatial literary studies, an ostensible rival primarily associated with the work of Robert T. Tally Jr., among others. In this essay, Tally responds to this criticism, first by explaining his use and understanding of the terms spatial literary studies and literary geography, then by attempting to create a working definition that would delineate the boundaries between these practices while leaving open the possibilities for future collaboration and mutual influence.

In the last 20 years, ecocriticism has developed from its early incarnation as the relatively under-theorised preserve of nature writing enthusiasts to its current vibrant state as a sophisticated array of ‘earth-centred’ approaches to cultural criticism that mobilise and reframe theories drawn from a range of disciplines in- cluding ecology, philosophy, sociology and biology. Ecocriticism’s diversity also extends to engaging with a variety of literary forms as well as, increasingly, film, TV, digital environments and music, and to an interest in representations of the urban.  At its heart is the conviction both that we are living in a time of ecological  crisis that requires us to reassess with some urgency our modes of being in the world and that our cultural perceptions of ‘nature’ and the ‘human’, and the relationship between the two, have to a large
degree been responsible for these damaging modes of being. Its role is to interrogate and critique these perceptions, even within environmentalism itself, with some ecocritics also committed to exploring alternative ways of conceptualising our relationship with the non-human world. This paper briefly traces the history of ecocriticism, discussing its initial development in the USA and Britain, outlining the two strands of social ecology and deep ecology that underpin its ongoing
formulation, and tracing the ‘waves’ of its development. It then focuses on contemporary and emergent theorisations, in particular the global inflection  of current  post-colonial  ecocriticism and  the  environmental justice movement,  which introduces  the new paradigm of eco-cosmopolitics, and the recent formulation of ecocritical post- humanism. This emphasises the imbrication of the human in earth’s matrix, drawing on the insights of ecofeminism, phenomenology and biosemiotics, and has its most recent incarnation in the currently emerging field of material ecocriticism, which,
in its engagement with the complex entanglement of the human and the non-human, the social and the scientific, hints at a more dissonant paradigm.

Despite its postmodern articulation, the spatial turn is productive for literary studies because, paradoxically revisiting Kant’s modern attempt to base the structure of knowledge on the presumably scientific character of geography and anthropology, it has improved methods of historical contextualization of literature through the dialectics of ontologically heterogeneous spaces. The author discusses three recent appropriations of the spatial thought in literary studies: the modernization of traditional literary geography in the research of the relations between geospaces and fictional worlds (Piatti, Westphal), the systematic analysis of the genre development and diffusion with the help of analytical cartography (Moretti), and the transnational history of literary cultures (Valdés, Neubauer, Domínguez, etc.). In conclusion, the author presents the tentative results of the research project “The Space of Slovenian Literary Culture: Literary History and the GIS-Based Spatial Analysis,” which might represent a matrix for further developments of the spatially-oriented literary science. Using GIS technologies, the project maps and analyzes data about the media, institutions, and actors of Slovenian literature in order to explain how the interaction between “spaces in literature” and “literature in spaces” has historically established a nationalized and esthetically differentiated literary field.

In our thesis we examine the function of the geographic area of Epirus as a literary myth in Greek prose fiction after World War II and, particularly, in the prose fiction that mythologizes the Epirotic space as birthplace. We focus on one hundred forty two texts by eight writers, who belong to the two postwar generations. In the first generation belong D. Hatzis, K. Tzallas, Ph. Tziovas and G. Dallas, while in the second T. Porfyris, Ch. Milionis, S. Stamatis and F. Moulios. Initially, most of them work as a team, being also members of the editorial committee of the literary magazine Endohora (1959-1966) of the city of Ioannina. Based on various approaches of the theory of literary space and literary myth, which are presented in the introduction, and applying the method of mapping that Literary Geography suggests, we distinguish the textual representation of the geography of Epirus into two categories: “place-setting” and “place-phantom”. In the first category we study urban (especially Ioannina) and rural areas and their symbolism, along with the value codes they carry, as the determined -directly or indirectly-topographic substrate of the text. In the second category we investigate the imaginary reconstruction of Epirus, when fiction refers to a setting far away from Epirus (such as Athens, Germany, England). We realize that the literary Epirus has a lot in common with the authors’ experience of Epirus. We also examine invisible spatial aspects: a. the historical dimension of Epirus as a war space of hostility, particularly during the 1940s; and b. the symbolizationed space of Epirus as a field of positive activity. In contrast to the war, the space is symbolized positively by the oral literature (i.e. in folk songs and legends), by the local dialect, and the local historiography. We infer that basic themes and motifs are derived from D. Hatzis and especially from The End of Our Small Town (1953, 1963), and, therefore, we emphasize his central role in the formation of post-war prose fiction of Epirotic locality.

Todos los artículos de esta revista han sido realizados por los alumnos de la asignatura del Grado de Filología Clásica de la Universitat de València Griego IV durante el curso 2020-2021, materia impartida por el profesor Ángel Narro, que realizó esta actividad , denominada Herodotean Geographic, en el marco de la red de innovación docente y del proyecto de la UV Geografies Literàries 3.0 dirigido por el profesor Alexandre Bataller

La premisa principal era la de crear  un artículo de divulgación al estilo de los que aparecen en revistas como National Geographic, que integraran textos en tono de divulgación desde la perspectiva de un griego del siglo V. No en todos los textos se ha seguido esta premisa. Aun así, cada grupo ha extraído una buena cantidad de información de los textos del historiador Heródoto que hablan sobre estas siete regiones del mundo antiguo.

Esperamos que el lector disfrute del recorrido por los diferentes territorios.

This study examines the various representations of place by Irish writers who published English language novels between [1929][1930][1931][1932][1933][1934][1935][1936][1937][1938][1939]. The aim of the study was to explore the various affective and subjective dimensions of place experience, as well as the different "personalities of place," depicted in novels, and other associated pieces of literature during this period in modern Irish history. The readings of these works have been placed in the context of accepted historical and cultural narratives of Ireland in the 1930s. A hermeneutic analysis was focused through five theoretical lenses, developed specifically for this study. These five lenses were constructed from the following theoretical foundations: Firstly, Anne Buttimer"s translation of Heidegger"s lebenswelt, based upon trends in German Phenomenology. Secondly, the various lifepaths of separate novelists informed the geographical readings of their novels and associated literature and was based upon the "life-biography" concept developed by Torsten Hägerstrand, and embellished by the phenomenological practices of Buttimer. Thirdly, a perspective that viewed novelists as humanistic geographers. Fourthly, a conceptualisation of novels as prose-fiction landscapes, an approach influenced by the theoretical work of Trevor Barnes and James Duncan, who conversely conceptualised landscapes as text, based upon the writings of French phenomenologist Paul Ricouer. And fifthly, Mikhail Bakhtin"s concept of the chronotope, a literary motif that signifies a spatial-temporal intersection of place. This study was divided into three main sections. In the first section Rural Lifeworlds, representations rooted in the bogs, fields and townlands of Peadar O"Donnell"s and Patrick Kavanagh"s prose fiction provide a contrast against the urban bourgeois framing of the rural Ulster landscape, found in the novels of Belfast residents Forrest Reid and Michael McLaverty. In the second section House-Islands and the Provincial Town, centripetal narratives embedded within the landed estates and demesnes of Elizabeth Bowen"s and Molly Keane"s prose, depict the decline of the Protestant Ascendancy "House-Island" culture, in contrast to Kate O"Brien"s interrogation in her novels of the ascendant Catholic bourgeois in the Irish provincial town. In the third section Urban Experiences, Samuel Beckett"s manic representation of modern Dublin is juxtaposed against Flann O"Brien"s mimetic and expressive narratives and representations of the Free State capital, which frame homes, streets and districts of Dublin in a language and style that draws from 1930s pop-culture, as well as Celtic mythology. Finally, selected readings of prose from the works of Patrick Kavanagh and Michael McLaverty illuminate the affective dimensions of rural to urban migration experienced by emigrants to London, Belfast and Dublin. In conclusion, the hermeneutic analysis of this study determined that the various representations of identity, sense of place and landscape contained in English language novels written and published by Irish writers between 1929-1939, belied "official" and ideological framings of the decade, in favour of heterogeneous and regional distinctions. The prose landscapes of these writers intimate the various affective and subjective dimensions of the "personalities of place," that operated during the period, and suggests that a rich mosaic of distinct landscapes coloured the many faces of the Irish island during the 1930s.

Di tanto in tanto, tra le discipline umanistiche, emerge un sapere privilegiato che all'improvviso sembra porsi alla testa della ricerca nei più disparati campi di studio. La linguistica ha ricoperto questo ruolo per un quarto di secolo -all'incirca tra il 1955 e il 1980 -quando pareva che nozioni come langue e parole, diacronia e sincronia, sintagma e paradigma potessero spiegare in maniera soddisfacente il più gran numero di fenomeni. La stagione di Hjelmslev, Jakobson, Barthes, Greimas, Eco, Todorov. Almeno dalla fine degli anni Novanta, invece, si vanno moltiplicando in tutto il mondo i segnali di un'irresistibile ascesa della geografia. E c'è già chi parla di un vero e proprio spatial turn che caratterizzerebbe il nostro tempo. Il convegno odierno ne offre, in qualche modo, anch'esso una piccola conferma.

Literary writing has operated as a space of inquiry unsettling the literal and figurative ground on which thinking takes place. From Hölderlin’s invocations to the ether, to Walter Benjamin’s characterization of Baudelaire’s poetry as unfathomable, a certain tradition of writing, particularly in German letters, takes shape around a critique of gravity. Against the background of a geopoetics, I propose to turn to the question of an inconstant and inconsistent ground in Paul Celan’s ‘geological lyric’ by explicating the relationship in his writing between the earth and its unthought other: air. This reading has as its object of inquiry what I am calling Celan’s aerography, which is doubly articulated in the turn to aerial space in his poetry and in his articulation of the work of air in those terrestrial landscapes formed and deformed by aeolian processes. I argue that the radically dissipative geographies evoked in his poems could extend critical geographic inquiry into a multiple and turbulent materiality; however, the sheer spectrality of the material world in Celan’s poetry seems to require an (a)material criticism, that is, a materiality without matter.

Nationalist consciousness is the shared sense of national communality of a group of people who uphold a common background despite cultural and linguistic differences. This they do by belonging to an entity much larger than their various ethnic groups. This study is set out to establish that a nation’s history is one factor that can evoke a sense of nationalist consciousness. Apart from national history, other elements of national consciousness are language, culture, cuisine, music, etc., and these have been engaged by researchers in Caribbean literature without accounting for the extent to which they can excite nationalist consciousness. Intertextual approach is therefore employed in the textual analysis, as it would trace the relationship Omeros shares with its pretexts and as well trace the extent to which this relationship is appropriated in the hypertext, the extent to which it adds to the declaration of the research purpose—to show that a nation’s history is an element of nationalist consciousness. The history of St. Lucia, as obtains in the text, is examined by detailing how it embodies both nation-creation and nation-building. Thus, by exploring these two concepts, the nation’s history is highlighted as an element that can evoke a sense of nationalist consciousness in Omeros.

"This is an excellent study, employing the theoretical model of intertextuality to establish how a literary text Omeros achieves nation-creation and nation-building. The researcher's mature handling of the subject, familiarity with subject/literature and mature control of the metalanguage and the mechanics of the language as well as mature expression make this work an invaluable contribution both to the literature on Omeros and to studies on historicity and intertextuality." ~ Prof. D. I. Teilanyo, Professor of English and Literary Studies, University of Benin, Nigeria.