Writing worlds : discourse, text, and metaphor in the representation of landscape

300 Pages·2006·6.588 MB·English

by  Barnes, Trevor J., Duncan, James S

Writing Worlds
Discourse, text and metaphor in
the representation of landscape
Edited by
Trevor J. Barnes and
James S. Duncan
WRITING WORLDS
The purpose of this book is to explore issues of geographical description from a
post-structuralist sensibility. Focusing on landscape representation, the authors
organise their discussion around the three themes of discourse, text and meta­
phor. Each theme is used as a potential entry point into understanding the shape
and substance of particular kinds of geographical writings: the discourse of econ­
omics, geopolitics and urban planning, travellers’ descriptions, propaganda
maps, cartography and geometry, poetry and painting.
The book argues that representations of landscape - the city, the countryside
or wilderness - are not mimetic, but rather a product of the nature of the
discourse in which they are written. Though the landscape representations
explored by the authors varies considerably - travellers’ accounts of Niagara
Falls to Turner’s painting of Leeds - each is a written world within a discrete
discourse. These essays all participate in the ongoing project of deconstructing
geographical discourse to explore the dynamics of power in the representation of
landscape.
Trevor J. Barnes is Associate Professor of Geography at the University of
British Columbia. His main research interests are in economic geography, and he
is the author with Eric Sheppard of The Capitalist Space Economy (Unwin
Hyman 1990). James S. Duncan is Professor of Geography at Syracuse
University. He is a cultural geographer and is the co-editor with John Agnew of
The Power of Place (Unwin Hyman 1989) and author of The City as Text (Cam­
bridge University Press 1990).
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WRITING WORLDS
Discourse, text and metaphor
in the representation of landscape
Edited by
Trevor J. Barnes
and
James S. Duncan
O Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 1992
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, 0X14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
a division of Routledge, Taylor & Francis
270 Madison Ave, New York NY 10016
Reprinted 1998, 2001
Transferred to Digital Printing 2006
Rout/edge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
© 1992 T. J. Barnes and J. S. Duncan
Typeset in Scantext September by
Leaper 8c Gard Ltd, Bristol
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Writing worlds: Discourse, Text and Metaphor in the
Representation of Landscape.
1. Geography
I. Barnes, Trevor J. U. Duncan, James S.
910
ISBN 0-415-05499-0
ISBN 0-415-06983-1 (pbk)
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Writing Worlds: Discourse, Texts, and Metaphors in the Representation
of Landscape/ F.dited by Trevor J. Barnes and James S. Duncan
Includes bibliographical references and index
ISBN 0-415-05499-0
1. Geography-Methodology 2. Discourse analysis
3. Deconstruction (Literary analysis) I. Barnes, Trevor J.
II. Duncan, James S.
G70.W75 1992
910'.014-dc20
To Claire and Michael
and to Jimmy
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CONTENTS
Illustrations
Contributors
Preface and acknowledgements
INTRODUCTION: WRITING WORLDS
Trevor J. Barnes and James S. Duncan
IDEOLOGY AND BLISS: ROLAND BARTHES
AND THE SECRET HISTORIES OF LANDSCAPE
James S. Duncan and Nancy G. Duncan
THE IMPLICATIONS OF INDUSTRY:
TURNER AND LEEDS
Stephen Daniels
READING THE TEXTS OF NIAGARA FALLS:
THE METAPHOR OF DEATH
Patrick McGreeuy
THE SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT THING THAT IS
SAID: WRITING THE AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE
Jonathan Smith
LINES OF POWER
Gunnar Olsson
THE ARCHITECTONIC IMPULSE AND THE
RECONCEPTUALIZATION OF THE CONCRETE
IN CONTEMPORARY GEOGRAPHY
Michael R. Curry
READING THE TEXTS OF THEORETICAL
ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY: THE ROLE OF
PHYSICAL AND BIOLOGICAL METAPHORS
Trevor J. Barnes
CONTENTS
9 METAPHOR, GEOPOLITICAL DISCOURSE AND
THE MILITARY IN SOUTH AMERICA 136
Leslie W. Hepple
10 FOREIGN POLICY AND THE HYPERREAL:
THE REAGAN ADMINISTRATION AND THE
SCRIPTING OF ‘SOUTH AFRICA’ 155
Geardid 0 Tuatbail
11 PORTLAND’S COMPREHENSIVE PLAN AS
TEXT: THE FRED MEYER CASE AND THE
POLITICS OF READING 176
Judith Kenny
12 TEXTS, HERMENEUTICS AND PROPAGANDA
MAPS 193
John Pickles
13 DECONSTRUCTING THE MAP 231
J. B. Harley
14 AFTERWORD 248
James S. Duncan and Trevor J. Barnes
Bibliography 254
Index 274
viii
ILLUSTRATIONS
Plates
1 Europe as a queen xiv
3.1 J. M. W. Turner, Leeds, 1816 39
3.2 Samuel Buck, The east Prospect of the Town of Leedes, 1720 40
4.1 Suicide prevention measures at Prospect Point, Niagara Falls,
New York 54
4.2 A landscape of death 62
4.3 The House of Frankenstein, Niagara Falls, Ontario 62
11.1 The Hyster facility - proposed Fred Meyer site 185
11.2 House in Grant Park neighbourhood with anti-Fred Meyer sign 186
12.1 One situation, two maps 198
12.2 Europe as a queen 202
12.3 Theodore Roosevelt’s face superimposed on a map of the USA 203
12.4 Soviet poster 204
12.5 Cover of Antipode 205
12.6 ‘Polish corridors elsewhere’ 206
12.7 German leaflet dropped on the allies at Dunkirk 207
12.8 The cover of a military code book 209
12.9 Time magazine map of‘Red China’ 210
12.10 Bolshevism poster 212
12.11 ‘His amputations continue systematically’ 212
12.12 ‘Work and fight to free the Indies’ 213
12.13 Uncle Sam gobbling chunks of Central America 213
12.14 Churchill as a greedy octopus 214
12.15 England threatened by a Jewish bolshevik conspiracy 214
12.16 German poster of 1944 215
12.17 US leaflet warning the Japanese 216
12.18 Selected examples of graphical illusions 218
12.19 Francis Picabia, The Dadaist Movement, 1919 220
12.20 ‘Arise!’ 229
ix