How does literature create a sense of space and place? In this course, we will examine the “spatial turn” in literary studies, understanding how space and place offer themselves as useful categories for the analysis of literary texts. We will read key theorists of spatiality, including Gaston Bachelard, Michel de Certeau, and Michel Foucault. Looking at examples from the 16th to the 21st century, we will close read literary depictions of “real” and fantastical landscapes, gardens, cities, houses, and oceans, understanding these spaces and places as sites of changing social relations and symbolic meaning. We will consider space and place in the contexts of gender, secularization, urbanization, colonisation, postcolonialism, and more. We will also study the spatial structure of literary works, paying attention to the technologies of the printed page and the digital text. Students will have the opportunity to learn about the use of digital technologies (e.g. mapping technologies) in analyzing the spatial dimensions of literature.

The city and the country; interiority and exteriority; public space; symbolic space; spatial turn; travel; empire; the space of the text 

To introduce students to different ways of approaching space and place in literary texts. To develop student abilities in terms of critical understanding, close reading, and contextual awareness. To nurture students’ ability to analyse the spatial dimension of a range of texts from across English language literary history.  

Tuesdays: Mini lecture, class discussion, student presentations. We will discuss short texts / extracts from a handout (10-25 pages). 

Fridays: Class discussion around a single text. 

We will also have stand-alone workshops (see outline below).