Mapping the Invisible Landscape: Folklore, Writing, and the Sense of Place (American Land and Life Series)

By Kent C. Ryden

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0877454140
• ISBN13: 9780877454144
• Release Date: June 1993
• Publisher: University of Iowa Press
• Length: 362 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.1" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Landscapes of the Mind

Geographers have often focused their investigations on the of the expression Place in the physical and material landscape. In Mapping the Invisible Landscape, Kent Ryden explores the unexplored non-material expressions of Place that dwells in the landscape, coincident with the material and physical reality. The "change of the landscape by experience" is done in the material, resulting in the cumulative idea of the cultural landscape. This change is also expressed in the invisible landscape of the mind, manifest through the written essay and the "folk" expression of the popular and personal imaginations. Ryden explores the relationship betwen imagined and material spaces with a convincing and powerful style.The structure of the monograph lends itself to the explanation of concepts and meanings, the expression of viewpoint, and the application of methods in a manner that is readable and persuasive. Ryden draws on a wide base of literature ranging from the scholarly expression of geographic ideas (Relph's Place and Placelessness;Francaviglia's Hard Places; and Taun's Space and Place), the writing of place oriented essayists and writers (Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!; Least Heat-Moon's Blue Highways; Lopez's Crossing Open Ground; and Berry's Collected Essays), and the oral histories that emerged in the folklore of the Coeur D'Alene Mining District of Idaho. Ryden skillfully blends these traditions of Place-centered expression. The tools and techniques founded in folklore and geography are used to explore the cognitive landscape that is expressed in the compressed narratives of those who live in a Place. The techniques lend themselves to full exploration of the literary expression of Place that correlates to experiential meanings. A great deal of the recent work on matters of Place has been conducted by those outside the field of Geography, and have been offered for popular consumption. Works such as Least Heat Moon's Blue Highways and Prairie Earth, Guerreau's Nine Nations of North America, and Lopez's "The American Geographies" contribute to the body of academic geography while popularizing the importance of Place with the public at-large. Ryden successfully contributes to the body of scholarly knowledge in a manner that appeals to the popular audiences. Ryden succeeds in exploring the different cartographies that are possible when rethinking the meaning of "maps", the symbolic representation of reality. The use of actual or metaphorical artifacts in the definition of the reality in which they exist is skillfully employed to structure the work. The exploration of material items, such as the stone post marking the Connecticut-Rhode Island boundary and the bump in the driveway of the author's childhood home, serve to illustrate, in clear and concrete terms, the power of Meaning attached to Place or Object revealed in relation to the contextual reality. These concrete examples are used to bookend the metaphorical and symbolic meanings of real and lite