Patricia García
Research project
In my previous book (Routledge 2015) I have explored the connections between urban space and the contemporary fantastic. This proposed project investigates this interaction diachronically and begins in the late eighteenth century, at a moment when one can detect forerunners of the urban fantastic. While the European city as a literary trope has received considerable academic attention, most scholars have concentrated exclusively on realist novels. What can we learn about the European city from fictions of the fantastic?
This research project will demonstrate that the city in Europe and the discourse of the fantastic are interrelated at many levels: transformations of the European city modify how the impossible is written and, correspondingly, fantastic narratives are fundamental testimonies of urban metamorphoses. This intersection remains to be explored in depth in literary and urban criticism, as well as in European history studies.
The project is extremely timely in that it addresses pressing issues of European identity that are currently undergoing major revision. It will show that the fantastic provides effective – and very unusual – techniques for expressing how European urban spatiality is perceived and artistically interpreted.
Biography
Patricia García is Associate Professor in Spanish Portuguese and Latin American Studies, with a joint appointment in Hispanic Studies & the Centre for Translation and Comparative Culture Studies at the School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies of the University of Nottingham. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from Dublin City University.
Patricia García research is mainly in the areas of contemporary Hispanic short fiction, comparative history of the Fantastic, teratology and human geography and literature. In Comparative Literature, she is particularly interested in the philosophies of space and their application to the study of literature. Her work tries to merge literary analysis with questions of space related to urban studies, architecture and anthropology.
Selected publications
'Paris and the Birth of the Modern Fantastic during the Nineteenth Century', CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture [online journal], vol. 19, n. 1, 2017.
'José María Merino: Memorias del lugar y lugares de la memoria', in A. Encinar & A. Casas (eds), El arte de contar. Los mundos ficcionales de Luis Mateo Díez y José María Merino, Cátedra, 2017, pp. 217-232.
'Narrativa 1980-2015', with D. Roas & N. Alvarez, in D. Roas (ed.), Historia de lo fantástico en la cultura española contemporánea (1900-2015), Iberoamericana Vervuert, Madrid/Frankfurt, 2017, pp. 195-215.
Space and the Postmodern Fantastic in Contemporary Literature: the Architectural Void, Routledge, New York/London, 2015.
''The Lighthouse' (Edgar Allan Poe, 1849; Cristina Fernández Cubas, 1997): From the 'Egocentred' to a 'Geocentred' Analysis', in B. Le Juez & O. Springer (eds), Shipwreck and Island Motifs in Literature and the Arts, Brill/Rodopi, Amsterdam, 2015, pp. 97-108.
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