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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.
Abstract: In 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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TL;DR: In the early 20th century, London's East End became known as slumming as discussed by the authors, a cultural practice that brought cultures into contact and negotiated their bound-aries, generating an engagement with and a rethinking of difference and modernity.
Abstract: T HE EXPLORATION O F European capitals during the modern period has often been associated with the figure of the flaneur, the observing city stroller, who drifted aimlessly through urban spaces. Alongside this increasingly commodified urban pastime emerged the exploration of eth- nic neighborhoods that came to be known as slumming. To the largely male urban explorers, encountering the city became, in the words of Richard Sennett, a form of cosmopolitism, the experience of diversity. 1 Urban strollers not only celebrated London as the empire's metonymic double but also debated its complicated social, cultural, and ethnic ter- rains. These differences fascinated writers who focused their curiosity eastward. Exploring and investigating the East End promised urban soci- ologists, social workers, and travelers something that was very different from London's West End leisure culture and the run-off-the-mill tours of historical sites. Slumming in the East End operated as a cultural practice in a metro- politan city that brought cultures into contact and negotiated their bound- aries, generating an engagement with and a rethinking of difference and modernity. At times, surveying the East End challenged individuals' iden- tities and their understanding of social and ethnic differences. 2 This is true for not only the urban explorers of the British capital but also for the many Jews from the Continent as well as other foreigners who placed London's slums on their itineraries. While traveling separately, these indi- viduals often refashioned the old realm of dangerous, uncivilized immi- grants into a space that authenticated their self-understanding. Their
17 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors show how a literary work's status as an object of knowledge can be determined by its use in index-learning and search engine learning, and propose a new kind of literary-critical knowledge that might be called slow reading.
Abstract: The first section of the essay inquires, "Is literature a special kind of knowledge?"; the second, "Is literary criticism a special kind of knowledge?" Through an analysis of Samuel Richardson's Clarissa and Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, the essay shows how a literary work's status as an object of knowledge can be determined by its use. The essay proposes that the eighteenth-century notion of "index-learning"–reading a text by way of its index–and its more recent incarnation–"search engine learning"–combined with techniques of close reading can yield a new kind of literary-critical knowledge that might be called "slow reading."
17 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine current developments in geohumanities and work on so-called deep maps, as well as considering work building on artistic practice and literary mapping traditions.
Abstract: This report examines current developments in geohumanities and work on so-called ‘deep maps’, as well as considering work building on artistic practice and literary mapping traditions. I discuss de...
17 citations
TL;DR: The historical novel is one of the most popular and critically significant genres of postcolonial writing, but, to date, almost no systematic scholarship is dedicated to it as discussed by the authors. But it is possible to read the postcolonial historical novel as a kind of allegory, and offer the term allegorical realism to describe this paradoxical mixing of conceptual and affective knowledge.
Abstract: The historical novel is one of the most popular and critically significant genres of postcolonial writing, but, to date, almost no systematic scholarship is dedicated to it. This essay proposes theoretical and critical parameters for exploring this genre. It begins with the observation that plausibility is a key principle articulated by many postcolonial writers and explores how framing novels in these terms, as a kind of realism, requires readers to negotiate heterogeneous structures of reference—and, in particular, to read imaginary characters as abstractions of historical phenomena. The second half of the paper explores the theoretical implications of this ontological heterogeneity, suggesting how the genre’s conventions are inflected by normative patterns of gender, race, and temporality. Overall, I propose that it is possible to read the postcolonial historical novel as a kind of allegory, and I offer the term allegorical realism to describe this paradoxical mixing of conceptual and affective knowledge.
16 citations
16 citations