Transnational Railway Cultures: Trains in Music, Literature, Film, and Visual Art

by Benjamin Fraser (Editor), Steven D. Spalding (Editor)

Overview

Since the advent of train travel, railways have compressed space and crossed national boundaries to become transnational icons, evoking hope, dread, progress, or obsolescence in different cultural domains. Spanning five continents and a diverse range of contexts, this collection offers an unprecedentedly broad survey of global representations of trains. From experimental novels to Hollywood blockbusters, the works studied here chart fascinating routes across a remarkably varied cultural landscape.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781789209198
Publisher:	Berghahn Books, Incorporated
Publication date:	10/15/2021
Series:	Explorations in Mobility , #6
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	250
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Benjamin Fraser is Professor of Spanish in the College of Humanities at the University of Arizona. He is the founding editor of the Journal of Urban Cultural Studies and co-editor of Trains, Mobility and Culture (2012) and Trains, Literature and Culture (2012).

Steven D. Spalding is an Independent Scholar with a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and a D.E.A. from the Université de Paris VIII. He is editor of the Transfers special section on Railways and Urban Cultures (2014) and co-editor of the books Trains, Mobility and Culture (2012) and Trains, Literature and Culture (2012).

Table of Contents

Introduction
Benjamin Fraser and Steven Spalding

Chapter 1. The Railway Arts: Sound and Space Beyond Borders
Aimée Boutin
    Chapter 1 Appendix

Chapter 2. The Sonic Force of the Machine Ensemble: Transnational Objectification in Steve Reich’s Different Trains (1988)
Benjamin Fraser

Chapter 3. A Genealogy of Apocalyptic Trains: Snowpiercer and Its Precursors in the Transnational Literature of Transport
John D. Schwetman

Chapter 4. Dangerous Borders: Modernization and the Gothic Mode in Horror Express (1972) and Howl (2015)
Fernando Gabriel Pagnoni Berns, and Juan Juvé

Chapter 5. Anachronism, Ambivalence, and (Trans)National Self-reference: Tracking the English Literary Chunnel from 1986 on
Heather Joyce

Chapter 6. Crossing Borders On and Beyond the Train in Joan of Arc of Mongolia (1989)
Steven D. Spalding

Chapter 7. The Cosmopolitan Writer: Exploring Representations on the Underground Railways of Buenos Aires and Paris through Julio Cortázar
Dhan Zunino Singh

Chapter 8. Literary Railway Bazaars: Transnational Discourses of Difference and Nostalgia in Contemporary India
Abhishek Chatterjee

Chapter 9. Memories of Trains and Trains of Memory: Journeys from Past-Futures to Present-Pasts in El Tren de la Memoria (2005)
Araceli Masterson-Algar

Chapter 10. Nord-Sud: The Parisian Metro and Transnational Avant-Garde Artistic Mobilities and Movements in Early Twentieth-Century Paris
Scott D. Juall

Conclusion: Mind the Gap
Benjamin Fraser and Steven D. Spalding

Editorial Reviews

” [This] edited volume will be of interest to historians of technology as it engages with concepts usually analyzed by the discipline. The notion of techno-scientific progress (and its persistence) is the most visible (with trains assuming the role of icon of modernity, contrasting with the backwardness embodied in characters and landscapes surrounding them).” • Technology and Culture

“Using interdisciplinary methods, the stimulating essays in this collection consider the ways that a wide variety of cultural texts represent the experience of train travel across national borders.” • Sunny Stalter-Pace, Auburn University

“A welcome addition to the growing scholarship on the cultural history of the railway, expanding the scope of inquiry geographically and culturally. All in all, a fascinating exploration of trains, cultures, nations, and passengers confronting borders, mobility, and migration.” • Anna Despotopoulou, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

From the Publisher