Errance et cohérence : Essai sur la littérature transfrontalière à la Renaissance. (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2010). (204 pp.)
Cet essai prend pour objet une époque où les frontières nationales et continentales, dans les cartes comme dans les esprits, sont loin d’être définies avec exactitude. Il offre moins une histoire abrégée de la littérature géographique de la Renaissance qu’une tentative d’analyser la manière dont les mots articulent les relations entre différents espaces, en privilégiant deux axes : l’Europe et Jérusalem, l’Europe et le Nouveau Monde. Si les rapports entre ces espaces sont souvent ponctuels, ils participent pourtant pleinement à l’élaboration d’un savoir sur le globe terraqué. Les parcours et les récits individuels deviennent dès lors les éléments, jamais totalisables, d’une idée commune de l’espace habitable.
Ayesha Ramachandran calls this an "insightful and probing book," of which the "key interest [is] the subtle analyses of the texts it examines [..] By investigating how individual travelers' reports affect conceptualizations of entire spaces, Usher reflects on the key philosophical question of the period: the relation between self and other, part and whole, the particular and the universal [...] Usher's emphasis on movement, border crossings, and the contingency of spatial identities participates in a wider scholarly reimagining of the early modern world in terms of shifting networks of exchange and invention rather than rigidly established structures of knowledge. This book will be of interest to literary scholars as well as others engaged in questions of early modern spatiality and geography; it offers a model for nuanced interdisciplinary analysis that cuts beyond theoretical jargon and reaches into the heart of a text." (From review by Ayesha Ramachandran, in Sixteenth Century Journal, XLIII/3, 2012, p. 800-02. Full review in PDF here).
--"...l’ouvrage est extrêmement stimulant..."; "...Les analyses s’appuient toujours précisément sur les textes convoqués..."; "...la lecture d’Errance et cohérence suscite l’envie de découvrir ou de re-découvrir ces textes parfois méconnus de la littérature du XVIe siècle." (Extracts from book review by Adeline Desbois (ENS), publ. in Fabula - full review / PDF.
Information sheet (PDF) :: Publisher's website (including ordering information) :: Announced on Fabula :: Buy on Amazon :: Buy at Gibert Joseph
Ayesha Ramachandran calls this an "insightful and probing book," of which the "key interest [is] the subtle analyses of the texts it examines [..] By investigating how individual travelers' reports affect conceptualizations of entire spaces, Usher reflects on the key philosophical question of the period: the relation between self and other, part and whole, the particular and the universal [...] Usher's emphasis on movement, border crossings, and the contingency of spatial identities participates in a wider scholarly reimagining of the early modern world in terms of shifting networks of exchange and invention rather than rigidly established structures of knowledge. This book will be of interest to literary scholars as well as others engaged in questions of early modern spatiality and geography; it offers a model for nuanced interdisciplinary analysis that cuts beyond theoretical jargon and reaches into the heart of a text." (From review by Ayesha Ramachandran, in Sixteenth Century Journal, XLIII/3, 2012, p. 800-02. Full review in PDF here).
--"...l’ouvrage est extrêmement stimulant..."; "...Les analyses s’appuient toujours précisément sur les textes convoqués..."; "...la lecture d’Errance et cohérence suscite l’envie de découvrir ou de re-découvrir ces textes parfois méconnus de la littérature du XVIe siècle." (Extracts from book review by Adeline Desbois (ENS), publ. in Fabula - full review / PDF.
Information sheet (PDF) :: Publisher's website (including ordering information) :: Announced on Fabula :: Buy on Amazon :: Buy at Gibert Joseph