Imagined Landscapes Geovisualizing Australian Spatial Narratives [Paperback]

Imagined Landscapes teams geocritical analysis with digital visualization techniques to map and interrogate films, novels, and plays in which space and place figure prominently. Drawing upon A Cultural Atlas of Australia, a database-driven interactive digital map that can be used to identify patterns of representation in Australias cultural landscape, the book presents an integrated perspective on the translation of space across narrative forms and pioneers new ways of seeing and understanding landscape. It offers fresh insights on cultural topography and spatial history by examining the technical and conceptual challenges of georeferencing fictional and fictionalized places in narratives. Among the items discussed are Wake in Fright, a novel by Kenneth Cook, adapted iconically to the screen and recently onto the stage; the Australian North as a mythic space; spatial and temporal narrative shifts in retellings of the story of Alexander Pearce, a convict who gained notoriety for resorting to cannibalism after escaping from a remote Tasmanian penal colony; travel narratives and road movies set in Western Australia; and the challenges and spatial politics of mapping spaces for which there are no coordinates.

It will likely be the indispensable touchstone for any future work in these areas with respect to Australian cultural studies.

Jane Stadler is Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies in the School of Communication and Arts at the University of Queensland, Australia.

Definitely original in its approach, since it combines a conceptual approach with a more applied one. The book is a serious contribution to the field of mapping spatial narratives and to a better understanding of the production and spatial structure of fictional places.

Introduction: Geocriticisms Disciplinary Boundaries
Acknowledgments
1. Remediating Space: Adaptation and Narrative Geography
2. Cultural Topography and Mythic Space: Australias North as Gothic Space
3. Sl3!