Abstract
How to develop landscape criticism after the “cultural turn” has received significant critical attention in recent years within Western academia. Contemporary British geographers, notably Nigel Thrift, have explored ways to address the methodological challenges faced by cultural geography. After examining the limits of representation in the production of knowledge, Thrift advocates for a “non-representational” turn in cultural geography. Drawing on Latour's “Actor Network Theory” and Deleuze's elaboration of Spinoza's concept of affect, this approach challenges the binaries inherent in representation, such as reality versus appearance, interior versus exterior, materiality versus discourse, presence versus absence. It shifts the focus to the role of bodily senses in shaping the experience of landscape. As a “weak theory,” non-representational thought aims to provide reparative descriptions, rather than critical diagnoses, of local landscapes, in order to illustrate how subjects and environments are continuously constituted through landscape practices. Although representation and non-representation may appear oppositional, they do not demand an either-or choice in landscape criticism. Instead, these two approaches offer complementary perspectives for contemporary landscape criticism and cultural geography, and inspire diverse forms of social practice and political engagement.
Keywords
representation, non-representation, Nigel Thrift, landscape criticism, cultural geography
First Page
179
Last Page
189
Recommended Citation
Zhang, Muren. . "Representation and Non-Representation: Exploring Approaches to Western Landscape Criticism." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 45, (4): pp.179-189. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol45/iss4/17
