A Review of Geographical Imaginations: Literature and the “Spatial Turn”

Geographical Imaginations: Literature and the “Spatial Turn” by Indranil Acharya and Ujjwal Kumar Panda offers a concise and accessible introduction to the diverse ways in which place and space are represented in literature. With its focus on geocriticism and spatial humanities, this work provides both a theoretical framework and practical examples by revisiting familiar canonical texts. The exploration of the mutual influence between space and human emotion leads to a more profound comprehension of place as an essential aspect of human experience. There is no denying that spatial humanities is a well-established arena in research, but the book observes that “it is still in a nascent stage in India” (xi).Anita Singh’s foreword encapsulates the essence of the book by highlighting the shift in literary studies toward an emphasis on space. She explores the history of space in literature, starting with Shakespeare, where space is just a backdrop for drama, and moving to Henry James, who treats space as a vessel for emotion. Michel Foucault’s 1967 essay “Of Other Spaces” marks the point where space begins to be theorized as the protagonist in literature. Gradually the “spatial turn” emerges with interdisciplinary approaches focused on the complexities of “space,” “place,” and “geography.”The book is structured into four key chapters meant to discuss the ways literature deals with different facets of space. The first chapter examines place as more than just a cartographical location, emphasizing its role as a medium of sociocultural interaction. This is followed by an exploration of real-world “nonplaces,” and “nonplaces” in imagined spaces, and in outer spaces (Mars or Moon). The third chapter delves into the interconnections between place, space, and ecology, while the concluding chapter addresses the concept of “marginal space.”The introduction with the subtitle Literary Geographies/Geographies of Literature, begins with a strong question: “Is it possible to think of Joyce’s Ulysses or Dubliners without Dublin or of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness without the serpentine expanse of the Congo River and the geographical details of continental African jungle?” (1). The argument forwards to the imaginary geography of Malgudi in R. K. Narayan’s Malgudi, or Yoknapatawpha in William Faulkner’s novels. “The present epoch will perhaps be above all the epoch of space” (Diacritics, vol. 16, no. 1, 22). The interrelation between literature and geography is not a far-fetched idea as humanistic geographers and urbanists like Yi-Fu Tuan, Edward Relph, D. C. D. Pocock, Robert T. Tally Jr., David Harvey, Edward W. Soja, Derek Gregory, and Nigel Thrift apprehend literature as a “spatially symbolic act.” Poetry and its continuous referral to the place be it real or imagined has been termed “topo-poetics” by Tim Cresswell’s (2017) essay Towards Topopoetics: Space, Place and the Poem.Edward Soza reemphasizes the human experiences of the land, and spatial experiences in the literature with the observation of “spatial turn.” Fredric Jameson defines “cognitive mapping” as a relational process that links individual experiences to a broader sociocultural context—“social space.” It serves as a tool for understanding how personal experiences are shaped by and reflect the larger social and cultural environment. Peter Turchi explains that charting our cities, knowledge, or culture reveals us—our interests, desires, fears, and biases. The later part of the introduction discusses the theoretical framework of “geocriticism,” Bertrand Westphal’s popularized term, and unfolds a geocentric approach toward literature and culture, “literary geography,” unfurls different modes of literary representation of geography and space, real or imaginary, “spirit of place” establishes that literature attributes to the place or locale and the “spirit” the place quell. Discussion of “rural and urban space” continues with Raymond Williams’s “country” and “city” dichotomy in literature, where Williams states nostalgia for past culture, and cultural geography “make the present topography and cultural shift appear more ostensible” (12). “Introduction” ends with the discussion of imperialism, colonization, and world wars and their impact on displacement, and dialectics of center, periphery, and semiperiphery. Edward Said’s Orientalism serves as evidence of literature responding to the geopolitical turmoil.The first chapter, “Sense of Place: Humanistic Geography, Literature, and Spatial Identity,” demonstrates “sense of place” (popularized by Yi-Fu Tuan), the “interdisciplinary bazzword” (Acharya and Panda) as human experience more than a mere cartographical location. Anthropologist Setha Low (1992) in “Symbolic Ties that Bind: Place Attachment in the Plaza” opines about culturally shares emotion with a place, terms as place attachment. Environmental psychologist Fritz Steele defines sense of place as “the particular experience in a particular setting.” Landscape architect John Brinckerhoff Jackson propounds “sense of place” as a construction by human experience, habit, or custom. Sociologist David Hummon in Community Attachment: Local Sentiment and Sense of Place gives a sociological definition of the term as “people’s subjective perception about their environment.” Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin state in Post-Colonial Studies: The Key Concepts (2007) that “a sense of place may be embedded in cultural history.” Examining Homi K. Bhabha’s “experience of social marginality,” “spatiality of human life,” “the rebalanced trialectics of spatiality- historicality-sociality” (Thirdspace), Soja’s idea of third space for the self-expression of social other, Henri Lefebvre’s “social space,” Spivak’s “theory of worlding,” Bertrand Westphal’s idea of “geocriticism,” Robart T. Tally’s “literary Cartography,” the authors establish a meaningful understanding of “place” in the broader framework of the sociopolitical and cultural arena. The chapter extends the discussion about the influence of place on an individual, with Edward Ralph’s theory of “insideness” and “outsideness” which states the inclusivity within place strengthens the relation of place and its culture, and the feeling of alienation promotes division between place and human emotion. Yi-Fu Tuan particularizes that “a place can generate negative vibes like fear, xenophobia, parochialism, etc.” The discussion of displacement, transcendence, and deculturization in modern British poetry, (e.g., The Waste Land), contrasts with the sense of rootedness in Irish poetry, exemplified by The Lake Isle of Innisfree and The Song of Wandering Aengus. W. H. Auden’s poetry, particularly The Double Man, expresses a profound sense of crisis and “nowhereness,” while the serene landscape poetry of Dylan Thomas and the works of Patrick Kavanagh and Seamus Heaney evoke both a connection to the land and a sense of dispossession, deterritorialized by the forces of colonization and Protestant invasion.Geographies out of human experiences, atopias, literature-created spaces, nonplaces are the main concern of the following chapter entitled “Literature’s Nonplaces: Making and Unmaking of Literary Place.” The term “nonplace” is described from many perspectives: M. M. Webber describes it from the “perspective of accessibility without any proximity and propinquity to the people,” Marc Augès describes nonplaces as undistinguished places where people are anonymous, lonely, separated. Science fiction genres create imaginary locations that direct to forget the real word, real identity, and rethink the being. Tuan’s concept of “romantic geography” is marked by a sense of wonder, with unknown regions becoming subjects of imagination. The chapter discusses Seafarer and the distinction between the habitability of “life in land” and non-habitability of “life on sea,” the capital city in Thomas More’s Utopia, the nowhereness in the middle of the journey, and “far from the madding crowd” life in Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, textual nonplaces in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travel. Milton’s description of the Garden of Eden as an “oriental bower of bliss,” situates paradise on this earth somewhere in Mesopotamia. The discussion ends with the subject of nonplaces within science fiction: Satyajit Ray’s The Diary of a Space Traveller (Byomjatrir Diary) outlines outer space and Mars, the adventure of Arthur Dent across galaxy, where he is uprooted from Earth and constantly moved through transient spaces that deny him identity, memory, and belonging, as the literary nonplace in Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.The discussion of “humanist geography,” including the posthuman places (“other spaces”), concerns “the posthuman tenets of plant geography and animal geography.” The chapter’s significance lies in its exploration of the interaction between human and animal geographies, drawing on key literary works, examining human-animal territorial conflicts in texts such as D. H. Lawrence’s Birds, Beasts and Flowers (1923), W. B. Yeats’s timeless poem The Wild Swans at Coole, and Seamus Heaney’s The Death of a Naturalist and The Early Purges. The chapter reflects Ted Hughes’s portrayal of the distinct geography of animals in Ghost Crabs, the impact of human control over animal habitats in The Black Rhino, and the theme of human colonization of animals, as seen in the story of Raja, the tiger, in R. K. Narayan’s A Tiger for Malgudi.The final chapter, “Geography of Exclusion: Marginal Geography in Literature,” portrays marginal space in the postcolonial era reflecting on the social, ethnic, racial, political, and economic marginality and very precisely dalitism in India. The authors recognize colonialism as a pivotal factor in establishing the core-periphery divide and highlight how globalization contributes to the emergence of the nation-state. The chapter analyzes the voyage from core (England, German) to periphery (Africa, Australia) through characters like Marlow in Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness, and Voss, the eponymous hero in Patrick White’s Voss. The exploration of the “geography of darkness” (102) continues through Graham Green’s Journey without Maps, which Rob Portar explores as “peripheral geography.” The authors explore how the core-periphery dichotomy functions within the context of India by analyzing Arvind Adiga’s The White Tiger, Dalit female autobiographies, Baby Kamble’s Prisons We Broke (originally published in Marathi as Jina Amucha and translated into English by Maya Pandit), and Bama’s Karukku (originally written in Tamil and translated into English by Lakshmi Holmström). Arvind Adiga’s Man Booker–winning novel The White Tiger shows how the IT revolution of India sets the backdrop where Bangalore represents “core” and Laxmangarh of Gaya, Bihar represents “periphery.” The chapter examines Dalit autobiographies, highlighting the societal, geographical, and economic marginalization they portray.Geographical Imaginations: Literature and the “Spatial Turn” is a comprehensive and thought-provoking exploration of the interplay between literature and space, offering insightful analyses of both canonical and regional texts. Its interdisciplinary approach successfully bridges literary studies with humanistic geography, cultural theory, and spatial humanities, making it an invaluable resource for scholars interested in geocriticism and spatial theory. It often takes a comparative approach with British literature, diluting its focus on Indian narratives. Although it touches on concepts like cultural and emotional spaces, the discussion on these themes feels insufficient. Moreover, although the book discusses marginal spaces, it lacks sufficient exploration of gendered spaces, neglecting a key dimension of spatial discourse that remains underdeveloped. Additionally, while the authors admirably contextualize spatial studies within an Indian framework, a deeper engagement with more diverse Indian languages and literary traditions would have further enriched the discourse. Despite these minor shortcomings, the work stands out for its clarity in organizing ideas, its careful balance of theory and textual analysis, and its relevance in illuminating the centrality of space in literature. It is a commendable contribution to the growing body of scholarship in spatial humanities and literary geography.