Turning Place into Space: The Science of Cartography and the Speculation of Narrative in Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities
Rupayan Mukherjee
- Pages
- pp. 30-41
- Published
- April 1, 2019
Rupayan Mukherjee (2019). Turning Place into Space: The Science of Cartography and the Speculation of Narrative in Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities. Labyrinth, 10(2), 30-41.
Abstract
This paper, through an engagement with the history of cartography , shall seek to substantiate modern cartography as a scientific and hermeneutic discourse which validates a historicised and homo - genised truth of place. The p aper, consequently , will seek to provoke the consideration of narrative as an alternative to cartography , if only to go beyond the represented, limited real called place into the experiential trans -reality called space. For this purpose, the paper will engage in a close reading of Italo Calvino ’s novel Invisible Cities , where the ethics of oblivion overwrite the mnemonic remembrances of Venice and present a V enice which is not just a place, but also a trans-discursive and trans-historicised possible space. The emergence of cartography has rendered a paradox; on one hand it has historicised and familiarised the unknown through the science of representation. Simultaneously , it has also validated an empirical reality as universal truth, denying the plurality of experiences which can otherwise, metamorphose place into a fluid possibility called space. Post-structuralism has deeply been critical of this hegemony of representation that the hermeneutic of cartography embodies. The paper through an enquiry into the d iscourse of cartography , shall seek to explore this ambiguity inherent in map -making as a science Rupayan Mukherjee Page 31 and shall provoke the consideration of fiction as a surplus which can counter-validate the authenticity of map -making, if only to explore the parallel truths of experiential beyond the familiar contours of the represented
Keywords:ethics of representationcartographydiscursive subjectfounding subjecttrans-discursivehermeneuticstelosspeculation


