The City in the Text: Setting as Signifier

The choice of a particular city, an urban setting, signifies more than a
geographical and historic context. The literal place presents a range of
images that present symbolically an author's memories, relationship, and use
of a city to transform mimesis into artistic representation. While Joyce's
use of Dublin for Ulysses is probably one of the first texts to come to
mind, many authors use their text to introduce the city as a central
presence, even character, in their texts. For example, some authors whose
works could be considered are Dante's Inferno, many novels by Dickens,
Hawthorne's House of the Seven Gables, Williams's Paterson, Hammett's The
Maltese Falcon, or Gilchrist's use of New Orleans in stories. The Paris
mapped out by Hemingway is not the same as the Paris depicted in iconic
images of ravaged faces by Baudelaire. The New York of Edith Wharton is not
the New York of Paul Auster. This panel will explore the representation of
cities in an individual text and the way each presentation shapes a
particular literary text. It asks presenters to raise the question, "How can
we theorize about the presence of the city as a signifier in the text?"
Texts may be from any time period and genre and from any literary tradition.
Deadline for 250 word abstracts is Sept. 15, 2006.

Send abstracts to: Marilyn Rye, mrye_at_fdu.edu or via US mail to Fairleigh
Dickinson University, 285 Madison Avenue M-MS1-01, Madison,NJ 07940.
973-443-8343. Include name and affiliation, email and postal addresses and
home and office phone #s and AV requirements (if any).

 
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Received on Wed Aug 23 2006 - 17:10:12 EDT