geocriticism

Geocriticism is an interdisciplinary approach within literary studies that treats space and place as central to reading. It examines how texts represent real locations, imagined geographies, landscapes, and urban layouts, and how these spatial features shape character, plot, memory, and ideology. It considers both real-world settings and fictional spaces and how they are deployed to construct scale, mobility, belonging, and difference.

Scholars associated with geocriticism employ methods drawn from geography, cartography, and urban studies alongside close reading. Common practices include analyzing spatial tropes, mapping textual spaces, interrogating toponymy and territorial imaginaries, and sometimes using geographic information systems or other mapping tools. The approach often pairs readings of space with historical, social, and political contexts such as migration, empire, or globalization.

Geocriticism emerged from the broader spatial turn in the humanities, gaining traction in late 20th and early 21st-century literary studies. It is used across world literature and comparative studies to reveal how literature participates in the production and contestation of spaces in relation to power, movement, and identity.

Critics argue that geocriticism risks privileging space over narrative or rigor in interpretation, and that mapping texts can be subjective or reductive. Proponents respond that when applied thoughtfully it clarifies how spatial arrangements organize meaning and place literature within wider geographical and historical processes.

See also: geography and literature; spatial humanities; critical cartography; world literature.