Narrating Space / Spatializing Narrative: Where Narrative Theory and Geography Meet (THEORY INTERPRETATION NARRATIV)

Ryan, Marie-Laure; Foote, Kenneth; Azaryahu, Maoz

Softcover

ISBN 10: 081425263X ISBN 13: 9780814252635

Publisher: Ohio State University Press, 2016

Narrating Space / Spatializing Narrative: Where Narrative Theory and Geography Meet by Marie-Laure Ryan, Kenneth Foote, and Maoz Azaryahu offers a groundbreaking approach to understanding how space works in narrative and narrative theory and how narratives work in real space. Thus far, space has traditionally been viewed by narratologists as a backdrop to plot. This study argues that space serves important but under-explored narrative roles: It can be a focus of attention, a bearer of symbolic meaning, an object of emotional investment, a means of strategic planning, a principle of organization, and a supporting medium.
Space intersects with narrative in two principal ways: ‘‘Narrating space’’ considers space as an object of representation, while ‘‘spatializing narrative’’ approaches space as the environment in which narrative is physically deployed. The inscription of narrative in real space is illustrated by such forms as technology-supported locative narratives, street names, and historical/heritage site and museum displays. While narratologists are best equipped to deal with the narration of space, geographers can make significant contributions to narratology by drawing attention to the spatialization of narrative. By bringing these two approaches together—and thereby building a bridge between narratology and geography—Narrating Space / Spatializing Narrative yields both a deepened understanding of human spatial experience and greater insight into narrative theory and poetic forms.

Review:

"Narrating Space / Spatializing Narrative: Where Narrative Theory and Geography Meet thoroughly succeeds in what it has set out to do: to create a genuinely interdisciplinary conversation between geography and narratology. This conversation about space and place, text and narrative, at once generates useful terms and methods of inquiry and models them through analyses of a wide spectrum of examples. Its interdisciplinary approach should bring it an appreciative audience across narratology, literature, and geography, and potentially in other fields that have involved themselves in 'the spatial turn,' such as art history, sociology, and philosophy."-Karen Jacobs, University of Colorado Boulder

About the Author:

Marie-Laure Ryan is an independent scholar and author of Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media. Kenneth Foote is Professor and Department Head in Geography at the University of Connecticut. Maoz Azaryahu is Professor of Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Haifa.