Train Travel as Embodied Space-Time in Narrative Theory

ISBN-13: 9783031405471 / Angielski / Twarda / 2023

Atsuko Sakaki

Opis

Train Travel as Embodied Space-Time in Narrative Theory argues that the train is a loaded trope for reconfiguring narrative theories past their “spatial turn.” Atsuko Sakaki’s method exploits intensive and rigorous close reading of literary and cinematic narratives on one hand, and on the other hand interdisciplinary perspectives that draw out larger connections to narrative theory. The book utilizes not only narratological frameworks but also concepts of space-focused humanity oriented social sciences, such as human geography, mobility studies, tourism studies, and qualitative/experience-based ethnography, in their post “narrative turn.” On this interface of narrative studies and spatial studies, this book pays concerted attention to the formation of affordances, or relations in which the human subject uses a space-time and things in it, in terms of passenger experience of the train carriage and its extension. Affiliation: Atsuko Sakaki, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.

Spis treści

Introduction: 

The Train as Embodied Space-Time, with Case Studies of The Lady Vanishes, The Narrow Margin, and Night Train 

Traveling Alone on the Rails into the Future: Sanshirō, My Most Secret Council, Night Train to Lisbon, and Zone

Juncture 1: Wendy and Lucy 

Best Friends for a While: Fugitives on the Train in “Night of the Milky Way Railway,” Night Passage, and The Naked Eye

Juncture 2: Clouds of Sils Maria 

It’s Not “I,” It’s “You”: A Second-Person Protagonist on the Train in La Modification, Blue Journey, and Suspects on the Night Train 

Conclusion: Stations as an Extension of the Train Space-Time in the Romantic Narrative “North Station”

O autorze

Atsuko Sakaki is Professor of East Asian studies and Comparative Literature at University of Toronto, Canada. She is the author of many articles and three books, including Recontextualizing Texts: Narrative Performance in Modern Japanese Fiction (Harvard, 1999) and The Rhetoric of Photography in Modern Japanese Literature (Brill 2015).

Blurb

Train Travel as Embodied Space-Time in Narrative Theory argues that the train is a loaded trope for reconfiguring narrative theories past their “spatial turn.” Atsuko Sakaki’s method exploits intensive and rigorous close reading of literary and cinematic narratives on one hand, and on the other hand interdisciplinary perspectives that draw out larger connections to narrative theory. The book utilizes not only narratological frameworks but also concepts of space-focused humanity oriented social sciences, such as human geography, mobility studies, tourism studies, and qualitative/experience-based ethnography, in their post “narrative turn.” On this interface of narrative studies and spatial studies, this book pays concerted attention to the formation of affordances, or relations in which the human subject uses a space-time and things in it, in terms of passenger experience of the train carriage and its extension. 

Atsuko Sakaki is Professor of East Asian studies and Comparative Literature at University of Toronto, Canada. She is the author of many articles and three books, including Recontextualizing Texts: Narrative Performance in Modern Japanese Fiction (Harvard 1999) and The Rhetoric of Photography in Modern Japanese Literature (Brill 2015).

”Atsuko Sakaki keeps us on our toes with her consistent deconstructions of central conceptualizations and, drawing on a wealth of philosophical and theoretical texts, in language as clear as it is sensual, brings us to new insights into human modes of being and ontologies.” Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany “In this intricate study of the entanglement of trains and narratives, Sakaki transforms our understanding of both. Train Travel uncovers a radically different experience of trains and narratives: they do not merely travel from one place to another; they construct passage as such, an experience of mutual entrainment.” Thomas Lamarre, University of Chicago