Research State of Play March 2020

Before I get swamped by marking again, I wanted to present a 'snapshot' of my current state of play regarding research.  On my research profile I list

-spatialities of speculative fiction
-self-tracking and mapping and
-counter-mapping in northern and developing areas

as my three main research areas.  I remain active in all three areas, both in terms of data collection and the development of theoretical frameworks/reading.

1. spatialities of speculative fiction

My latest idea will involve deep engagement with three key texts: 1. Le Guin, Always Coming Home 2. Aldiss, Helliconia and 3. Herbert, Dune.  ACO will be posited as an appendix to a massive unwritten text, the content of which provides a set of speculations grounded in an empirical approach to the Aldiss and Herbert texts.  This means a deep analysis of the relationships between the main stories and the appendices of both Helliconia (the full set) and Dune.

A further theoretical innovation is posited in the development that would trace a memetic transmission of the idea of the mapped appendix from Tolkien --> Herbert --> Aldiss --> Le Guin with each subsequent iteration adding to the development of the idea of the appendix as both diegetic and paratextual, with increasing sophistication through time.

This will involve of course reading all four texts (including of course Tolkien) deeply and annotating diegetic mappings with the main bodies of the texts. I will use Ekman's methodologies for analysing the maps themselves, from his book Here Be Dragons: Exploring Maps and Settings; as well as Marie-Laure Ryan (et al), Narrating Space/Spatalizing Narrative.  The latter provides a starting point for examining my conclusions, in which I state that it is Herbert who is responsible for the insertion of mapped appendices and speculative mappings into science fiction, importing the tradition from fantasy (and Tolkien).

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I have some other ideas around speculative fiction, to do with examining how various subgenres use both literal and metaphorical maps and mappings to build their various worlds. I want to compare cyberpunk, grimdark, and space opera, and am beginning to do so by reading Stephenson, Gibson, Abercrombie, Spark, Banks, and Arkady.  These six texts provide a framework for examining for example what kinds of maps operate in and structure cyberspace, operationalizing binaries but at the same time literalizing the idea of the virtual that has always been at the heart of fiction (bolstering the claim along the way that all fiction is science fiction, and therefore that cyberpunk is literally the start of science fiction, Neuromancer the first true science-fictional text), etc

2. self-tracking and mapping

Cartographic Anxieties of Running: do people run better without maps?  The idea of 'naked running' has taken hold in the running world as a way of countering the idea that 'if it isn't on Strava, it didn't happen'.  This means that the legitimacy of your run hangs on whether or not you post it to social media, meaning further that you can be judged. This despite the fact that many running clubs espouse a non-judgemental approach to the sport.

Alex Hutchinson discusses in his book Endure the case, for example, of runner Diane van Deren who had a partial right temporal lobectomy for seizures.  After the surgery, van Deren "was unable to read maps or keep track of where she is on a course, [so] she doesn't focus on the challenge ahead of her...she is also free of the cognitive challenge -- the shackles, perhaps -- of pacing herself" a condition she credits with helping her win races.

Sam Murphy, in a recent Runners World article, talks about links between mental maps and anxieties associated with finding your way while running. I want to extent the discussion around maps and anxiety and 'naked running' by reaching out to my own running contacts, and others in different running clubs, to look for strategies people use in order to overcome their own navigational and pacing issues.  This ties, theoretically into research being done, for example, by Neff (Self-Tracking, MIT Press), and extends into territories of surveillance capitalism (see Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism) and the fact the we exude data for use by large corporations and that the business models of whole industries rely upon the behavioural modifications apps like Strava enable.

'Running naked' is a new kind of counter-mapping, a bit in line with the urge the Google Street View resident take when they blur their houses from the map.

3. Counter-mapping in northern and developing areas

My work on Scotland continues, and I am moving forward on a work called 'Braided Spatialities' positing a variety of contrapuntal mappings of tourist and historical cartographic silences and anxieties revolving around the conjunctions of Culloden, the Clearances, and various far Northern Highlands sites of interest. This paper will form a chapter of my magnum opus work-in-progress Contrapuntal Cartographies (in contract with McGill-Queen's University Press) looking at hierarchies and parallels of transatlantic mappings of various kinds of counter-cartography, indigeneities, resistances, and aesthetics.

My key texts are dual: Pittock's Culloden and Basu's Highland Homecomings provide the key theoretical touchpoints currently.  I am reading these very deeply and heavily annotating as I go.