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Atlas of the European Novel 1800-1900

01 Jan 1998-

TL;DR: Moretti as mentioned in this paper explored the fictionalization of geography in the nineteenth-century novel and found that space may well be the secret protagonist of cultural history, in a series of one hundred maps, alongside Spanish picaresque novels, African colonial romances and Russian novels of ideas.

AbstractIn a series of one hundred maps, Franco Moretti explores the fictionalization of geography in the nineteenth-century novel. Balzac's Paris, Dickens's London and Scott's Scottish Lowlands are mapped, alongside the territories of Spanish picaresque novels, African colonial romances and Russian novels of ideas, in a path-breaking study which suggests that space may well be the secret protagonist of cultural history.

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Proceedings ArticleDOI
11 Jul 2010
TL;DR: The method involves character name chunking, quoted speech attribution and conversation detection given the set of quotes, which provides evidence that the majority of novels in this time period do not fit two characterizations provided by literacy scholars.
Abstract: We present a method for extracting social networks from literature, namely, nineteenth-century British novels and serials. We derive the networks from dialogue interactions, and thus our method depends on the ability to determine when two characters are in conversation. Our approach involves character name chunking, quoted speech attribution and conversation detection given the set of quotes. We extract features from the social networks and examine their correlation with one another, as well as with metadata such as the novel's setting. Our results provide evidence that the majority of novels in this time period do not fit two characterizations provided by literacy scholars. Instead, our results suggest an alternative explanation for differences in social networks.

270 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The history of the world is the slaughterhouse of literature, reads a famous Hegelian aphorism; and literature is the world's slaughterhouse as discussed by the authors, and the majority of books disappear forever.
Abstract: Let me begin with a few titles: Arabian Tales, Aylmers, Annaline, Alicia de Lacey, Albigenses, Augustus and Adelina, Albert, Adventures of a Guinea, Abbess of Valiera, Ariel, Almacks, Adventures of Seven Shillings, Abbess, Arlington, Adelaide, Aretas, Abdallah the Moor, Anne Grey, Andrew the Savoyard, Agatha, Agnes de Monsfoldt, Anastasius, Anzoletto Ladoski, Arabian Nights, Adventures of a French Sarjeant, Adventures of Bamfylde Moore Carew, A Commissioner, Avondale Priory, Abduction, Accusing Spirit, Arward the Red Chieftain, Agnes de Courcy, An Old Friend, Annals of the Parish, Alice Grey, Astrologer, An Old Family Legend, Anna, Banditt’s Bride, Bridal of Donnamore, Borderers, Beggar Girl . . . It was the first page of an 1845 catalog: Columbell’s circulating library, in Derby: a small collection, of the kind that wanted only successful books. But today, only a couple of titles still ring familiar. The others, nothing. Gone. The history of the world is the slaughterhouse of the world, reads a famous Hegelian aphorism; and of literature. The majority of books disappear forever—and “majority” actually misses the point: if we set today’s canon of nineteenth-century British novels at two hundred titles (which is a very high figure), they would still be only about 0.5 percent of all published novels. And the other 99.5 percent? This is the question behind this article, and behind the larger idea of literary history that is now taking shape in the work of several critics—most recently Sylvie Thorel-Cailleteau, Katie Trumpener, and Margaret Cohen. The difference is that, for me, the aim is not so much a change in the canon—the discovery of precursors to the canon or alternatives to it, to be restored to a

197 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on how we can understand the contradictory dynamic through which communications technologies have been domesticated at the same time that domesticity itself has been dislocated.
Abstract: This article focuses on how we can understand the contradictory dynamicsthrough which communications technologies have been domesticated at the same time that domesticity itself has been dislocated. The article addresses questions of historical periodization and the need for a more developed historical perspective on the futurological debates about the new technologies with which so much of media and cultural studies is concerned today.

186 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the growing interest in the relationship between maps, narratives and meta-narratives and explore their current state in the Geoweb era.
Abstract: This report focuses on the growing interest in the relationship between maps, narratives and meta-narratives. Following a brief historical contextualization of these relationships, this report explores their current state in the Geoweb era. Using the distinction between story maps and grid maps as an analytical framework, I review emerging issues around the extensive use of technologies and online mapping services (i.e. Google maps) to convey stories and to produce new ones. Drawing on literature in film studies, literary studies, visual arts, computer science and communication I also emphasize the emergence of new forms of spatial expressions interested in providing different perspectives about places and about stories associated to places. In sum, I argue that mapping both vernacular knowledge and fiction is central understanding places in depth.

154 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For instance, the fox-terrier is a judge of the behaviour of a human being as mentioned in this paper, and the nature of the human behaviour is excluded from his comprehension, even when the human being's good will toward the dog is completely justified.
Abstract: Take our dogs and ourselves, connected as we are by a tie more intimate than most ties in this world; and yet . . . how insensible, each of us, to all that makes life signiWcant for the other!—we to the rapture of bones under hedges, or smells of trees and lamp-posts, they to the delights of literature and art. As you sit reading the most moving romance you ever fell upon, what sort of a judge is your fox-terrier of your behaviour? With all his good will toward you, the nature of your conduct is absolutely excluded from his comprehension. To sit there like a senseless statue when you might be taking him to walk and throwing sticks for him to catch! What queer disease is this that comes over you every day, of holding things and staring at them for hours together, paralyzed of motion and vacant of all conscious life?1

109 citations