CPLT 637 01. Mappings: Literature and the Spatial Imagination (YALE UNIVERSITY)

Ayesha Ramachandran
This course begins with the premise that maps both create narratives and influence the shape and interpretation of literary texts. As historical objects, maps offer narratives about how we imagine and organize ourselves in psychological, spiritual, social, and political terms (Harley & Woodward, Jacob, Besse); but the map has also become a charged concept in contemporary literary theory, codifying ideas and expectations about space, place, orientation, and itinerary (Lefebvre, Baudrillard, Deleuze, Moretti, et al.). We trace the shifting intersections between cartographic technologies and literary form, moving from the "cartographic revolution" of the sixteenth century to the grand digital-spatial dream of Google Earth. Topics covered include spatial literacy in verbal and visual texts; cartographic technologies and instruments; maps in books and as books (atlases); and literary uses of various mapping practices (spiritual, geographic, conceptual, data-driven); these topics are anchored in readings of Camões's Lusiads, Voltaire's Candide, and Pynchon's Mason and Dixon, with a variety of complementary materials (travel accounts, navigational tracts, broadsides, poems, maps, globes, atlases). Our materials and methodologies mean that the course also functions as an alternative introduction to themes in book history and the digital humanities: classes meet at the Beinecke Library, the Sterling Map Room, and Bass Library. There is a required lab component in addition to the regular seminar.