Event Title
Manhattan Transference: Reader Itineraries in Modernist New York
Location
Science Center, A255
Document Type
Presentation
Start Date
4-26-2013 2:45 PM
End Date
4-26-2013 3:45 PM
Abstract
John Dos Passos’s Manhattan Transfer (1925) follows dozens of characters through modern New York City. The novel is organized as a fragmented montage and, in this project, I argue that transit functions as both a central theme and the structuring principle of the text. I compare Manhattan Transfer to works by Walt Whitman and William Dean Howells and draw upon spatial form theory to examine how experiences of urban transportation influence literary forms. Ultimately, I suggest that Manhattan Transfer’s modernist form offers readers itinerant ways of perceiving the complicated networks of which cities are made.
Recommended Citation
Bamert, Sophia, "Manhattan Transference: Reader Itineraries in Modernist New York" (04/26/13). Senior Symposium. 1.
https://digitalcommons.oberlin.edu/seniorsymp/2013/presentations/1
Major
English; Environmental Studies
Advisor(s)
T.S. McMillin, English; Environmental Studies
Project Mentor(s)
T.S. McMillin, English; Environmental Studies
April 2013
Manhattan Transference: Reader Itineraries in Modernist New York
Science Center, A255
John Dos Passos’s Manhattan Transfer (1925) follows dozens of characters through modern New York City. The novel is organized as a fragmented montage and, in this project, I argue that transit functions as both a central theme and the structuring principle of the text. I compare Manhattan Transfer to works by Walt Whitman and William Dean Howells and draw upon spatial form theory to examine how experiences of urban transportation influence literary forms. Ultimately, I suggest that Manhattan Transfer’s modernist form offers readers itinerant ways of perceiving the complicated networks of which cities are made.
Notes
Session II, Panel 9: Determinant Spaces in the Politics of Culture: Reflections from Japan, New York, and Jamaica
Moderator: Gillian Johns, Associate Professor of English
Full text thesis available here.