Place matters: geographical context, place belonging and the production of locality in Mediterranean Noirs

Scholars have been investigating detective stories and crime fiction mostly as literary works reflecting the societies that produced them and the movement from modernism to postmodernism. However, these genres have generally been neglected by literary geographers. In the attempt to fill such an epistemological vacuum, this paper examines and compare the function and importance of geography in both classic and late 20th century detective stories. Arthur Conan Doyle’s and Agatha Christie’s detective stories are compared to Mediterranean noir books by Manuel Montalbán, Andrea Camilleri and Jean Claude Izzo. While space is shown to be at the center of the investigations in the former two authors, the latter rather focus on place, that is space invested by the authors with meaning and feelings of identity and belonging. From this perspective, the article argues that detective investigations have become a narrative medium allowing the readership to explore the writer’s representation/construction of his own territorial context, or place-setting, which functions as a co-protagonist of the novel. In conclusion, the paper suggests that the emerging role of place in some of the later popular crime fiction can be interpreted as the result of writer’s sentiment of belonging and, according to Appadurai’s theory, as a literary and geographical discourse aimed at the production of locality.

Truth and Wonder in Richard Head’s Geographical Fictions

In line with the method prescribed by members of the Royal Society for natural history and travel writing, Richard Head explored the limits of verisimilitude associated with geographical discourse in his three fictions The Floating Island (1673), The Western Wonder (1674) and O-Brazile (1675). In them he argues in favor of the existence of the mysterious Brazile island and uses the factual discourse of the travel diarist to present a semi-mythical place whose very notion stretches the limits of believability. In line with recent critical interpretations of late seventeenth-century fiction as deceptive, and setting the reading of Head’s narrations in connection with other types of travel writing, I argue that Head’s fictions are a means of testing the readers’ gullibility at a time when the status of prose, both fictional and non-fictional, is subject to debate.

De volta às discussões sobre o significado de paisagem e outras avenças

Resumo Acompanhando as proposições metafísicas que sobrecarregam o discurso geográfico e, certamente, nossas noções de paisagem, este artigo dialogando com um conjunto de citações disponibilizado pelo professor e amigo Nicolás Ortega Cantero, em uma das aulas ministrada na Universidade Autônoma de Madri, é uma revisita ao tema – lembrando que os artigos que já publiquei sobre o assunto se encontram identificados na bibliografia. Palavras-chave: Geografia, teoria e método, paisagem, território, região. Abstract Following the metaphysical propositions that overload the geographical discourse and, certainly, our conceptions of landscape, this paper is a revisit to the theme and dialogues with a set of quotes, provided by the friend and professor Nicolás Ortega Cantero, in one of his classes given at the Autonomous University of Madrid – remember, the articles I have already published about the subject are identified in the bibliography. Keywords: Geography; theory and method; landscape; territory; region Resumen En el marco de las propuestas metafísicas que sobrecargan el discurso geográfico y, por supuesto, nuestras nociones de paisaje, este artículo, dialogando con un conjunto de citas ofrecido por el profesor y amigo Nicolás Ortega Cantero, en una de sus clases en la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, es una revisita al tema - recordando que los artículos que ya he publicado sobre el tema se encuentran identificados en la bibliografía. Palabras clave: Geografía, teoría y método, paisaje, territorio, región.

Geografias Moderna e Pós-Modernas

Resumo Instituído e sucessivamente recriado no âmbito da modernidade, o discurso geográfico vê-se já de um tempo desafiado pelas críticas e referências do pós-moderno. Sobretudo em face de as mudanças recentes envolvendo a geografia humanista e a geografia crítica terem passado ao largo do avanço cultural da pós-modernidade. Palavras-chave: modernidade, pós-modernidade, novas teorias. Abstract The geographical discourse, founded and successively recreated in the context of modernity, it's being challenged by critics and references of postmodernity. It occurs especially face to the recent changes in humanistic and critical geography that don't go along with the cultural advances on postmodernity. Keywords: modernity, postmodernity, new theories.

Geografias Moderna e Pós-Modernas

Resumo Instituído e sucessivamente recriado no âmbito da modernidade, o discurso geográfico vê-se já de um tempo desafiado pelas críticas e referências do pós-moderno. Sobretudo em face de as mudanças recentes envolvendo a geografia humanista e a geografia crítica terem passado ao largo do avanço cultural da pós-modernidade. Palavras-chave: modernidade, pós-modernidade, novas teorias. Abstract The geographical discourse, founded and successively recreated in the context of modernity, it's being challenged by critics and references of postmodernity. It occurs especially face to the recent changes in humanistic and critical geography that don't go along with the cultural advances on postmodernity. Keywords: modernity, postmodernity, new theories.

Mapping Terra Incognita

The theorizing of a southern continent for more than two millennia before the discovery of Antarctica and its long representation in maps are phenomena unparalleled in the history of geography and are well known. However, the epistemological implications of the mapping of this non-existent place have received little consideration. After preliminary remarks about present-day remote imaging of Antarctica and limits to the completeness of all mapping and knowledge, the article discusses the representation of the southern Terra Incognita in examples of mediaeval and Renaissance maps. It is argued that filling in blank spaces both reflected a yearning for complete knowledge and provided an opportunity for non-geographical discourse that is missing in maps today.