Georges Perec’s Geographies: Material, Performative and Textual Spaces

Georges Perec (1936–82) was one of the most inventive and original writers of the twentieth century. A fascinating aspect of his work as a novelist, filmmaker, and essayist is its intrinsically geographical nature. With many major projects on space and place, Perec’s writing speaks to a variety of geographical, urban, and architectural concerns—both in a substantive way, including a focus on cities, streets, and homes, and in a methodological way, as in his experiments with urban observation and exploration. Georges Perec’s Geographies explores Perec’s geographical interests. The book is divided into two parts: Part I, “Perec’s Geographies,” explores space and place within Perec’s films, radio plays, and literature, from descriptions of actual streets to the fictional places within his work. Part II, “Perecquian Geographies,” explores geography in works directly inspired by Perec, including writing, photographs and photo essays, soundscapes, theater, and dance. Extending Perecquian criticism beyond literary and French studies to disciplines including geography, urban studies, and architecture, Georges Perec’s Geographies offers a complete and systematic examination that will be of interest not only to Perec scholars but also to students and researchers across these subjects.  

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Georges Perec’s geographies; Perecquian geographies Richard Phillips, Andrew Leak and Charles Forsdick 1. The mapping of loss Andrew Leak 2. ‘Entre Frence et Engleterre: toponyms and the poetics of reference in Perec’s fiction Derek Schilling 3. The subject and the city in Un homme qui dort Julia Dobson 4. Poetics of scale: Perec and Gaullism Douglas Smith 5. Accumulation versus Dispersion: Perec and ‘his’ diaspora Anna-Louise Milne 6. Islands, camps, zones: towards a nissological reading of Perec Amanda Crawley Jackson 7. Textual, audio and physical space: adapting Perec’s radio plays for theatre Christopher Hall Perecquian Geographies 8. Perecquian soundscapes Alasdair Pettinger 9. Perecquian spaces for performance practices Oliver Bray 10. Embodiment and everyday space: dancing with Perec Leslie Satin 11. Seeing more flatly: the Regional Book David Matless 12. Endotic Englishness: Meades and Perec Daryl Martin 13. Perecquian photography inside and outside the field: fairgrounds Ian Trowell 14. Photographic investigation of the infraordinary Joanne Lee 15. When nothing happens in Huddersfield Kevin Boniface

About the Author :
Charles Forsdick is James Barrow Professor of French at the University of Liverpool. He works on travel writing, colonial history, postcolonial literature and the cultures of slavery. His books include Victor Segalen and the Aesthetics of Diversity (2000) and Travel in Twentieth-Century French and Francophone Cultures (2005). Andrew Leak is Professor of French and Francophone Studies at UCL. He has written extensively on Jean-Paul Sartre, Roland Barthes, Haiti, and Georges Perec. He has translated Perec into English, resulting in the publication of A Man Asleep (1990) and Lieux (2001). Richard Phillips is Professor of Cultural Geography at the University of Sheffield. His books include Mapping Men and Empire: A Geography of Adventure (1997), Sex, Politics and Empire (2006), Fieldwork for Human Geography (2012) and Creative Writing for Social Research (forthcoming).

Review :
'This collection of essays... is Perecquian in all the best ways. It's intelligent, systematic, and comprehensive, and at the same time playful and creative with its topic. The book as a whole is a delight: an excellent academic resource for those interested in Perec and the representation of space (especially urban space) and a celebration of how his unique approach to his environment has inspired a new generation of creative practitioners.' French Studies: A Quarterly Review