American Literary Geographies: Space and Cultural Production, 1588-1888
(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 have the
materiality and technology 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: gendered spaces, domestic fiction, religion
and representational spaces, racial geographies, Black Atlantic,
personal/psychological space
--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 Martin
Brückner (mcb_at_udel.edu) or Hsuan L. Hsu (hhsu_at_socrates.berkeley.edu) by
7 October, 2003. Accepted papers of 6,000-8,000 words will be due by 1
August, 2004.

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Received on Tue May 13 2003 - 12:55:45 EDT