GEO-SPATIAL IMAGERY AMD POPULAR PHYSICS

This paper is concerned with the ways in which geo-spatial imagery functions in the presentation of modern physics to the general reader. Focusing on metaphorical descriptions of the experiences of both specialists and non-specialists in approaching the subject, it points to a disjunction between the images commonly used within works of popular physics and those used in their promotion. While positive images of journey and exploration characterize the advertising of books about physics aimed at the general reader, negative images of disruption and placelessness are more characteristic within them. The paper suggests that this disjunction reflects and exacerbates a general confusion about the relative \u27reality\u27 of the subject matter of modern physics, and it considers in what ways this confusion can be traced to problems of language inherent in the informal discussion of a study of abstract phenomena for which the primary language is mathematical

The Landscape According to Whom? : Place and Point of View in Willa Cather\u27s "A Wagner Matinee"

This paper is intended to contribute to two separate discussions: the first, taking place within the field of cultural geography, has to do with the reading of fiction for the purposes of geographical research and teaching; the second, taking place within the field of literary studies, has to do with the interpretation of a short story by the American writer Willa Cather. The two discussions, geographical and literary, connect: the analysis of the story functions here as a case study illustrating the need for an awareness of narrative point of view in the reading of fictional presentations of landscape and the experience of place. The consideration of a variety of readings of the story, "A Wagner Matinee," demonstrates the ways in which interpretations of narrative point of view influence the conclusions a reader draws regarding a text\u27s presentation of landscapes, places, and the sense of place

Text, Context. and Audience : The Portrait of a Lady in The Atlantic Monthly and Macmillan\u27s Magazine, 1880-81

Critical discussions of The Portrait of a Lady tell us little about its original serialization in the Atlantic Monthly and Macmillan\u27s Magazine (1880-81). The first one-volume edition of the Portrait has conventionally been taken as the novel\u27s original text, and critical interest has focused on the differences between this text and the revised edition of 1908. Focusing on the coherence of the novel and the craft of the writer, critics have concentrated on the stylistic changes James made for the 1908 edition, and viewed the serialized versions and the 1881 book editions as being practically identical. This paper argues, however, that from the point of view of the writer as well as the general reader the differences between the serialized novel and the later book editions were substantial and significant. Working with reference to recent work in serial fiction, this paper considers the distinctive ways in which the first readers of the Portrait might have experienced the novel, and suggests some directions for further study of this topic

\u27Japanese\u27 spaces and the Construction of \u27America\u27 in Mass-Market US Fiction : Sayonara and Rising Sun

Mass-market American fiction dealing with the experience of places defined as \u27Japanese\u27 has, in the post-war era, shown a movement away from a concept of Japanese place as something exotic, contained, and linked to the past, and towards an understanding of it as an unavoidable and invasive part of the American future. This article takes James Michener\u27s Sayonara (1953) and Michael Crichton\u27s Rising Sun (1992) as early and late examples of the ways in which Japanese place has been constructed as the \u27other\u27 against which American senses of spatial and cultural identity have been defined. It concludes that images of Japan and Japanese spaces in mass-market American fiction have altered dramatically while the culturally specific geo-spatial assumptions that inform the construction and use of those images have remained largely unchanged

All Together Now

TO BE ADDE