Introduction: Geographical Emotions and the Modernist City

This chapter introduces the overall methodology and theoretical approach taken in the book, explaining the significance of the idea of the outsider in modernism. It then outlines the idea of the geographical emotions of modernism (drawing upon a term first coined by the writer Bryher). This is articulated by combining theories of literary geography with work on affect theory, mood, and emotion. Theorists drawn upon here include Silvan Tomkins, Henri Lefebvre, Raymond Williams, and Martin Heidegger. It argues for an understanding of modernism in these four European cities in terms of a regional transnationalism, situating this approach within current debates on global modernism. The chapter illustrates these arguments by a reading of Mulk Raj Anand’s Conversations in Bloomsbury.