>
>
> American Literary Geographies: Space and Cultural Production to 1888
> (collection)
>
> In light of the recent "spatial turn" in critical theory and various
> critical attempts to "remap" the field of American studies, we are
> seeking contributions for an essay collection that investigates
> intersections between geography and cultural production prior to the
> founding of the National Geographic Society in 1888. Proposals are
> invited to address some of the following questions: How does the recent
> turn towards spatial questions in cultural studies affect the field of
> American studies? How do the methods of historical geography and
> literary analysis complement each other? How does the geographical
> rhetoric in critical theory and practice influence the conception of
> identity in the imperial, colonial, or national contexts? How has the
> technology and materiality of geographic discourse informed
> subjectivities, sexualities, literatures, and cultures?
>
> While the collection will be organized around questions of U. S.
> literary history, essays that address other geographies (such as
> transatlantic or hemispheric perspectives) and disciplines (such as
> visual art, material culture, urban studies, and historiography—not to
> mention cultural geography) are welcome. Possible themes include, but
> are not limited to:
>
> ·geographies of identity: personal/psychological space, gendered
> spaces, domestic fiction, religion and representational spaces, racial
> geographies, Black Atlantic, diaspora
> ·transnational (hemispheric, transatlantic, etc.) perspectives:
> imperialism, intertextuality, comparative approaches, Monroe Doctrine,
> gunboat diplomacy, Mexican-American War
> ·genre and geography: pastoral, travelogues, romance, exploration,
> maritime literature ·technologies of geographic writing: print culture,
> history of cartography, geography textbooks, land surveys
> ·geography and nation-building: "imagined community," "democratic
> social space," National Geographic Society, American exceptionalism
> ·mobile geographies: nomadism, exile, migration, speed, steamships,
> canals, railroads
> ·theorizing literature and geography: spatial aspects of metaphor and
> metonymy, new formalism, The Space of Literature, poetics and
> "cognitive mapping"
>
> Please send a cv and a 3-page proposal (or completed paper) to one of
> the contacts below by 7 October, 2003. Accepted papers of 6,000-7,500
> words will be due by 1 August, 2004.
>
> Martin Bruckner
> or
> Hsuan L. Hsu
> Email: [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask]
>
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