Unreal City: Psychogeography of London Literature

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

Unreal City explores the literature of London through psychogeography, the relationship between its physical environment and its authors' lives and creations. We chart the trajectories and transformations of the city during the period of its rationalisation, industrialisation, and expansion into a modern megalopolis, from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, with particular focus on the place, role, and reaction of the author within it. We examine the topography, historical conditions and developments, and cultural characteristics of six distinct London neighbourhoods representative of particular phenomena and processes, ranging from the struggle of the artistic vocation, alienation and addiction, to the ascent of technology and total work: Grub Street, Hampstead, Soho, Chelsea, Bloomsbury, and the City of London. The area will be disclosed through the experiences, identities, communities, and creations of prominent writers who inhabited and depicted the area, including Samuel Johnson, John Keats, Thomas Carlyle, Virginia Woolf, and T. S. Eliot. This will enable us to track urban continuities and contrasts, and their influence on the lives and art of Londoners. London as a living organism and its representation are our portals of discovery and enquiry. Each neighbourhood will be studied over two weeks, with the first consisting of a detailed analysis of the relevant material and themes, and the second a physical encounter with the respective place and its spirit, consisting of a walking lecture tour of the area (including visits to the houses of authors), informed by texts which capture its identity and challenges. In addition to collective class visits, students are required to undertake independent research into other districts, authors, and themes, upon which they will be assessed. Their findings will be shared with the group in presentations. In this way, each member of the class will add their own lenses to a kaleidoscopic view of London.