1st Edition

Here and Now The Politics of Social Space in D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf

By Youngjoo Son Copyright 2006
    264 Pages
    by Routledge

    262 Pages
    by Routledge

    Working at the crossroads of contemporary geographical and cultural theory, the book explores how social spaces function as sites which foreground D. H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf's critiques of the social order and longings for change. Looking at various social spaces from homes to nations to utopian space brought into the here and now the book shows the ways in which these writers criticize and deconstruct the contemporary symbolic, physical, and discursive spatial topoi of the dominant socio-spatial order and envision a more liberating and inclusive human geography. In addition, the book calls for the need to redress the tendency of some spatial theories to underestimate the political potential of literary discourse about space, instead of simply and mechanically appropriating some theoretical concepts to literary criticism. One of the central findings in the book, therefore, is that literary texts can perform subversive interventions in the production of social space through their critical interaction with dominant spatial codes.

    Acknowledgments Introduction Part I. Rewriting Private and Public Spaces Introduction Chapter One 1. The anguish of the home discord: Refiguring Domestic Space in Sons and Lovers 2. Reversing Gender and Space in The Rainbow Chapter Two 1. Refiguring Domestic Space: A Sketch of the Past and Mrs. Dalloway 2. Spatializing Feminism 3. Remodeling Public Space Part II. Remolding Home and Nation Introduction Chapter Three 1. Revisiting Home/Nation 2. Imperialism and the Discourse of Home 3. Demolishing Home/Nation: The Virgin and the Gipsy 4. I Won't Delude Myself with the Fallacy of Home: Toward an Alternative Home/Nation in Kangaroo Chapter Four 1. An Uncanny Story: The Journal of Mistress Joan Martyn 2. Demolishing the Imperial Home/Nation: The Waves 3. Toward an Alternative Home/Nation in The Years Part III. Utopic Spaces Her and Now Introduction Chapter Five 1. The Conception of Utopia, Rananim 2. Rewriting Utopias: The Man Who Loved Islands and A Dream of Life 3. Insurgent Now 4. Emerging Utopia Here and Now: The Rainbow 5. A Perpetual Journey: Women in Love Chapter Six 1. Woolf's Utopia in the 1930s 2. Utopia in a City: Mrs. Dalloway 3. Epiphanies Refigured: Moments of Being, The Moment: Summer's Night, and Between the Acts Conclusion Bibliography Index

    Biography

    Younjoo San is a full-time lecturer at the Department of English Language & Literature at Seoul National University. Is a member of the Virginia Woolf society in Korea, the James Joyce Society in Korea, and Studies in Modern Fiction. Recent publications include Virginis Woolf's 'Moments of Being' and Utopia Refigured and The Journal of Humanities, Rethinking Epiphanies: The Politics of Utopic Space/ Time in D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf.