Mobility Studies: A New Direction in Spatial Literary Studies

Abstract

Abstract: If the “Spatial Turn”of the social sciences in the 1990s triggered the quick rise of Spatial Literary Studies, the “Mobility Turn” that occurred in the early years of the 21^st century may have also drawn enthusiastic attention to the issue of mobility in literary studies. The “Mobility Turn,” whose inception, budding, and growth are deeply indebted to the “Spatial Turn,” stresses the connectivity and dynamics of space and the crucial role mobility plays in the construction of space as well. Literary representation of mobility is mainly executed through an integrated body-space-mobility model and laid out with mobility medium (transport technology and transport infrastructure) and mobility politics as the two basic dimensions. The significance of Mobility Literary Studies is: on the micro level, it focuses on the embodiment of mobility and sees mobility as spatial practice of the body; on the macro level, it reveals the interplay between mobility and literature, namely, the changes in narrative structure and literary genre impacted by the transformation of mobility technology and infrastructure on the one hand and, on the other, a series of ways in which literature functions, such as observing mobility evolution, revealing mobility politics, participating in mobility discourse, and intervening mobility practice.

Key words: Spatial Literary Studies, Mobility Turn, transport, the construction of space

Liu Ying. Mobility Studies: A New Direction in Spatial Literary Studies[J]. Foreign Literature Studies, 2020, 42(2): 26-38.

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