The Plausible World A Geocritical Approach to Space, Place, and Maps

by Westphal, Bertrand

• ISBN13: 9781137364586
• ISBN10: 1137364580
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2013-11-19
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

In The Plausible World, the intersections of literature and cartography enable readers to understand that place is anything but purely geographic: a plausible world is created as a strategy to fill the void. Readers travel alongside navigators, pilgrims, literary characters, and artistic subjects as they experience the thrill of pure space through the exploration of the unknown. Here, political concerns such as the evolution in the orientation of maps, the establishment of meridians, and the naming of place in the image of the Colonizer all play out across the imagining of space and its shaping into place. Innovative in his approach, Westphal challenges the view that perceptions and representations of space are stable or straightforward.

Author Biography

Bertrand Westphal is a Professor of General and Comparative Literature at the Université de Limoges, France where he directs the "Espaces Humains et Interactions Culturelles" research team. He is the author of numerous works on geocriticism, Austrian literature, the Mediterranean, and the theory of the novel.

Amy Wells is an Associate Professor of English in the Applied Foreign Languages Department at the Cherbourg Satellite of the Université de Caen de Basse Normandie, France.

Table of Contents

1. The Multiplication of Centers

2. The Horizon Line

3. The Spatial Urge

4. The Invention of Place

5. The Measured Mastery of the World