The increasing attention paid to figurations and poetics of spatiality within literary texts in the course of the so-called spatial turn calls for a closer integration of urban space research, literary studies and memory research. In an age of ever faster communication processes and a seemingly shrinking globalized world, spatial considerations are not only informative for the analysis of intrinsic textual strategies, but are also indicators of the formative discourses of the environment in which they are produced. The connection between semiotics, postmodernism and capitalism is thus central to a consideration of urban space and its contemporary negotiation in literature. Using the aforementioned approaches and in the context of a Deleuzian understanding of space, this thesis examines the semiotic construction of spatiality in two novels: Paul Auster's “Moon Palace” (1989) and Teju Cole's “Open City” (2011).
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Literary Studies after the Spatial Turn
2.1. Reading the City as Text - The Spatial Turn and the Semiotics of Space
2.2. Towards a Fusion of Urban and Literary Studies
3. Language, Body and Space in Paul Auster’s Moon Palace
3.1. Spatializing the Body
3.2. “Tell me what the clouds look like.” – Semiotic (Re-)Construction of Space in Moon Palace
3.3. Subverting the Postmodern? (Modernist) Bodily Existence vs. (Postmodern) Disorientation and Fragmentation
4. Teju Cole’s Open City – Rewriting the City
4.1. Multi-layered Text-Spaces and the City as Palimpsest
4.2. New York City as Deterritorialized Space of Migration?
4.3. Third Space Experiences – Narrating Spatial Conflicts
5. Deleuze and Guattari’s Philosophy of Space and Literary Spaces in Moon Palace and Open City
5.1. Moon Palace and the Rhizomatic: Contesting the American Self-narrative of Manifest Destiny
5.2. Palimpsest – Rhizome – Open City: Spatial Semiotizations of the Urban in Open City
5.3. De- and Reterritorializing Processes, or: Crisis and Reterritorialization/Recuperation
5.4. Smooth and Striated Spaces
6. The Poetics of Sacred Space – Reinscribing Ruinous Body Textualities
6.1. Figurations of Individual and Collective Crises
6.2. ‘There is no place like home’ – The Production of Absolute Topologies
6.3. Patriotism and the Sacred Space of Home(land)
7. Conclusion
8. Bibliography
Research Objectives and Themes
The study aims to perform a parallel analysis of Paul Auster’s Moon Palace and Teju Cole’s Open City to examine how both novels utilize the semiotization of space, the body, and the urban environment to navigate crises of postmodernity while contesting traditional American national self-narratives. It interrogates the extent to which these works deviate from typical postmodern representations of fragmented urban spaces by proposing alternative methods of bodily and spatial reterritorialization.
- The semiotics of space as a productive, non-neutral category in literary texts.
- Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophical models (rhizome, deterritorialization, smooth/striated space) in urban literature.
- The role of the body and corporeality in constructing and orienting space.
- The subversion of the "Manifest Destiny" narrative through spatial representations of the "ruin" and the "frontier."
- The impact of post-9/11 politics on the perception of urbanity, openness, and national identity.
Excerpt from the Book
3.1. Spatializing the Body
As already indicated, the body plays an important role in defining the means by which space is constructed, and the bodily constitution also shapes the very perception of space (cf. Vogel 1998: 190). Bodily disintegration would then immediately translate into spatial fragmentation, which correlates with the early Fogg in Auster’s Moon Palace. This point is illustrated by the way Fogg’s apartment is described:
I had only to look at my room to know what was happening. The room was a machine that measured my condition: how much of me remained, how much of me was no longer there. [...] I could follow the progress of my own dismemberment. Piece by piece I could watch myself disappear.11
Selling his inherited boxes of books, which he had used as furniture, Fogg’s apartment gradually empties indicating his bodily decay. While the first part of the novel mirrors the postmodern condition by featuring the development of the protagonist’s collapse (cf. Dallmann 2003: 147.), in the second part of the novel this is inversed. The following sub-chapter will analyze to what extent Moon Palace diverges from this initial semiotization of a ruined body/text and poses a bodily existence instead, which opposes or at least undermines one that is indebted to the postmodern condition of deterritorializing forces as described by Buchanan. If the fragmentized body ceases to differentiate between inner and outer (cf. Vogel 1998: 190), it is this failed attempt that initiates an urge to situate the body and a determination to find the body’s position, which can be called Moon Palace’s spatial agenda. Following Foucault’s vision of the body as “the zero point of the world” (Foucault 2006: 233), bodies are always to be grasped spatially.
Summary of Chapters
1. Introduction: The introduction establishes the parallel between Paul Auster’s Moon Palace and Teju Cole’s Open City, highlighting their shared focus on New York City, crisis, and postmodern spatiality.
2. Literary Studies after the Spatial Turn: This chapter outlines the development of the "spatial turn" in literary theory, discussing key figures like Foucault, Soja, Jameson, and Lefebvre to define space as a socially and culturally constructed category.
3. Language, Body and Space in Paul Auster’s Moon Palace: The chapter explores how the protagonist Fogg’s initial bodily and domestic fragmentation mirrors postmodern disorientation and how this is countered by the body's role as a generative anchor for spatiality.
4. Teju Cole’s Open City – Rewriting the City: This section analyzes Cole's novel as a flâneur narrative that employs a "palimpsestal" structure to map New York City's complex histories of migration and trauma.
5. Deleuze and Guattari’s Philosophy of Space and Literary Spaces in Moon Palace and Open City: The analysis applies Deleuzian concepts such as the rhizome and deterritorialization to understand how the novels construct, deconstruct, and re-territorialize urban and desert spaces.
6. The Poetics of Sacred Space – Reinscribing Ruinous Body Textualities: This chapter examines the creation of "sacred spaces" and absolute topologies as mechanisms for coping with crisis, nostalgia, and the re-emergence of nationalist rhetoric post-9/11.
7. Conclusion: The conclusion synthesizes the findings, arguing that both authors navigate the tension between postmodernist fragmentation and a nostalgic, material realism through the semiotization of space and the body.
8. Bibliography: Contains the complete list of academic sources and primary texts referenced throughout the thesis.
Keywords
Spatial turn, postmodernism, Paul Auster, Moon Palace, Teju Cole, Open City, Deleuze and Guattari, rhizome, bodily existence, urban space, deterritorialization, Manifest Destiny, 9/11, palimpsest, sacred space.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the fundamental focus of the work?
The work explores how literature represents the city as a space shaped by crisis, bodily experience, and historical trauma, focusing specifically on Paul Auster’s Moon Palace and Teju Cole’s Open City.
What are the primary thematic fields involved?
Central themes include the "spatial turn" in literary studies, the semiotics of urban architecture, the interconnection between the human body and environmental space, and the critique of American self-narratives like "Manifest Destiny."
What is the core research goal?
The research aims to determine how both novels move beyond typical postmodernist notions of urban fragmentation toward a "sacred" or "integral" space that reassesses history and national identity.
Which scientific methods are utilized?
The thesis employs a comparative literary analysis grounded in spatial theories, specifically the poststructuralist philosophies of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, as well as the work of Henri Lefebvre and Marc Augé.
What does the main body of the work cover?
It provides a theoretical framework regarding space in literature, followed by in-depth analyses of how Fogg’s body becomes a "zero point" in Moon Palace and how the cityscape of New York acts as a "palimpsest" in Open City.
What keywords define the research?
Keywords include spatial turn, rhizome, deterritorialization, bodymind connection, urban palimpsest, sacred space, and postmodern realism.
How does Moon Palace handle the concept of space compared to other typical postmodern novels?
Unlike standard postmodern novels that often leave their protagonists in a state of unresolved fragmentation, Moon Palace sees the protagonist Fogg recover a form of bodily integrity or "absolute topology," which shifts him toward a form of realism.
What role does 9/11 play in Open City?
9/11 acts as a topographical wound and a "sacred space" of Ground Zero, which the narrator Julius uses to confront the city's repressed histories and his own traumatic memory.
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- Yasmin Mohammad Ali Khan Afshar (Autor:in), 2014, A Deleuzian Reading of Spatial Semiotizations in Paul Auster’s "Moon Palace" and Teju Cole’s "Open City", München, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/1509100
