Literature of Space and Place

Catalog description

This course investigates how various spatial categories (for example, the city, the pastoral, wilderness, region, nation, or the globe) work in and are constructed by literary texts. Humanities fields have increasingly noted the importance of space and place in shaping our lives and as key mechanisms through which ideas of gender, sexuality, race, class, national identity, or nature are shaped. Our spatial analysis of literature will borrow from an interdisciplinary range of methods: cultural and historical geography, cartography, urban studies, and/or environmental studies. The course also addresses the historical and cultural contexts that have shaped ideas of space.