Autore
Marenco, Franco

Titolo
Geopercorsi (da Edward Said a Claudio Magris)
Periodico
In verbis
Anno: 2013 - Fascicolo: 1 - Pagina iniziale: 47 - Pagina finale: 64

This paper takes its cue from the two perspectives opened by the word «migration», importing on the one hand the physical phenomenon of migratingthrough space, and on the other the metaphorical meaning of translatingwords and ideas, theories, from text to text, and from place to place: thetwo uses have been associated in postmodern scholarly research, due tothe impact of what is now commonly called spatial turn, i. e. the conversionfrom time-oriented to space-oriented interests and methods. A newawareness of space has favoured the crossing of boundaries between disciplinesand orthodoxies, starting from the traditional work of philosophersand psycho-analysts, of economists and sociologists, historians and anthropologists.A short overview of such developments is provided, focusing inparticular on the work of Clifford Geertz and James Clifford, and on thecontemporary production of Edward W. Said and Homi Bhabha, two intellectualsoriginating from the former "periphery" of Western civilisation.They introduce us to the more specifically cultural aspects of the problem,adapting the tools of poststructuralist criticism to the analysis of a vast spectrumof cultural texts. Such books as Culture and Imperialism (1993) andThe Location of Culture (1994) - are important landmarks in the generaltrend towards a constructive handling of space in critical practice. Originalcontributions in this perspective came from Iain Chambers - Migrancy,culture, identity (1994) - and Franco Moretti - especially his Atlas of theEuropean Novel, 1800-1900 (1998) and Graphs, Maps, Trees. Abstract Modelsfor Literary History (2005). The growth of spatiality into a fully-fledgedtheory came in Bertrand Westphal's La géocritique (2007). In his later Austro-fictions. Une géographie de l'intime (2010) Westphal discusses an Italianwriter, Claudio Magris, as the champion of a new discipline: no meanacknowledgment though much overdue, as Magris had been practicing hisbrand of geocriticism for five full decades from the position of «un écrivainde la frontière» - the border between Italy and Mitteleuropa - reaching thateminent position especially in works such as Danubio (1986) and in one ofthe most important novels of the new century, Alla cieca (2005), through anexistential and creative process, far from any stiff theoretical commitment.



SICI: 2279-8978(2013)1<47:G(ESAC>2.0.ZU;2-O
Testo completo: http://www.mulino.it/download/article/10.7368/73916
Testo completo alternativo: http://www.mulino.it/doi/10.7368/73916

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