Summary of May's Meeting

On Wednesday Anna Hope guided us through the strange world of 'Bizarro' fiction and Foucault's essay 'Of Other Spaces'. The texts provoked plenty of questions, including: how 'bizarre' really is Bizarro? What kinds of conservative assumptions and messages might actually lurk within the genre? How does the genre- and Carlton Mellick in particular - treat the female body? Do these authors encourage particular reading practices? Can any kind of dialogue be opened up between these authors and theorists or academics?

Foucault's text allowed us to think about the female body in Mellick's The Haunted Vagina as a type of 'heterotopia', which in turn made us ask whether the text positions the female body as a 'deviant' space. It also led us to discuss Foucault's notions of 'real' and 'unreal' spaces, and to ask to what extent the virtual worlds evident in texts such as Mellick's challenge or complement Foucault's thesis.

Thanks to all who attended our penultimate session. On the 18th we will bring 'Spaces in Theory' to a close with our trip to Shandy Hall.

Readings for Wednesday 2nd May

The next meeting of the reading group is entitled 'AnOther Landscape: Deviant Heterotopia in The Haunted Vagina' - led by Anna Hope.

 

Be warned - this session is not for the faint of heart!

 

We will be covering the following texts:

 

• Carlton Mellick III, The Haunted Vagina (Portland: Eraserhead, 2006) [to be circulated via email]
• Michel Foucault, 'Des espaces autres' [Different Spaces], Architecture, Mouvement, Continuité, 5 (1984), pp. 46-49

 

Please note, due to file size we will be sending the Mellick out on request - email us at spacestheory@hotmail.co.uk if you would like to receive the attachment.

 

We hope to see many of you in Lipman 121 at 4:30pm.

 

Politics of Place: A Journal for Postgraduates

Members of the reading group might be interested in Politics of Place, a new peer-reviewed journal for postgraduates, based at the University of Exeter. It focuses on the relationship between culture and spatiality in works of literature, engaging particularly with issues of nationhood, community, class, marginality, and the self, and places specific emphasis on the complex interactions between physical environments and human activity.

The journal is encouraging submissions which consider ideas of space, place, mapping, journeying, and discovery for its first issue, the theme of which is 'Maps and Margins'. It aims to explore notions of mapping from the physical to metaphysical and metaphorical, and to cast light upon margins of the self and society – within the page, beyond the page, or beyond the map. The deadline for the ‘Maps and Margins’ issue is 30 June 2012.

Readings will soon be circulated for our next session, led by Anna Hope, on Carlton Mellick III's The Haunted Vagina and Foucault's concept of heterotopia (Wednesday 2nd May, 4:30pm). We hope to see you after a restful Easter break!