Geocriticism and Spatial Literary Studies

In various ways, Chinese diasporic communities seek to connect and re-connect with their “homelands” in literature, film, and visual culture. The essays in Affective Geographies and Narratives of Chinese Diaspora examine how diasporic bodies and emotions interact with space and place, as well as how theories of affect change our thinking of diaspora. Questions of borders and border-crossing, not to mention the public and private spheres, in diaspora literature and film raise further questions about mapping and spatial representation and the affective and geographical significance of the push-and-pull movement in diasporic communities. The unique experience is represented differently by different authors across texts and media. In an age of globalization, in “the Chinese Century,” the spatial representation and cultural experiences of mobility, displacement, settlement, and hybridity become all the more urgent. The essays in this volume respond to this urgency, and they help to frame the study of Chinese diaspora and culture today.

This edited volume examines the life, works, and influence of Edgar Allan Poe from a variety of critical, biographical, and literary-historical perspectives through diverse lenses of spatiality. Eighteen contributions offer spatially-oriented investigations of the critical, intellectual, cultural, philosophical, and political spaces wherein Poe defined himself as a critic and artist. The collection comes together in four parts focusing on the Temporal and Atemporal Spaces, Social and Political Spaces, Imaginative and Psychological Spaces, and Transnational and Translated Spaces. Authors from the US, Japan, Spain, France, and Portugal represent Poe’s pervasive and ongoing international influence.