The American Roadside in Émigré Literature, Film, and Photography: 1955–1985 traces the origin of a postmodern iconography of mobile consumption equating roadside America with an authentic experience of the United States through the postwar road narrative, a narrative which, Elsa Court argues, has been shaped by and through white male émigré narratives of the American road, in both literature and visual culture. While stressing that these narratives are limited in their understanding of the processes of exclusion and unequal flux in experiences of modern automobility, the book works through four case studies in the American works of European-born authors Vladimir Nabokov, Robert Frank, Alfred Hitchcock, and Wim Wenders to unveil an early phenomenology of the postwar American highway, one that anticipates the works of late-twentieth-century spatial theorists Jean Baudrillard, Michel Foucault, and Marc Augé and sketches a postmodern aesthetic of western mobility and consumption that has become synonymous with contemporary America.
Author(s): Elsa Court
Series: Studies In Mobilities, Literature, And Culture
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: 203
Tags: Twentieth-Century Literature
Acknowledgements......Page 6
Praise for The American Roadside in Émigré Literature, Film, and Photography......Page 8
Contents......Page 9
List of Figures......Page 10
1 America: A Picture from the Margins......Page 12
2 The Roadside: A Postcard from the Future......Page 20
3 Mooring Systems and the Mobility Paradigm in the Humanities......Page 25
4 Methodology: Four Case Studies......Page 28
References......Page 31
2 “Stationary Trivialities”: Life on the Margins in Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (1955)......Page 34
1 The Motel as American Space......Page 38
2.1 Contrasted Depictions of the American Motel......Page 40
2.2 The Motel in Lolita: A Screenplay......Page 46
3.1 In the Driver’s Seat: An Eye on the Margins of the Road......Page 50
3.2 The Ominous Roadside......Page 56
4 Conclusion......Page 68
References......Page 74
3 “Roadside Eye”: Accidents and Epiphanies in Robert Frank’s The Americans (1958)......Page 76
1.1 From Walker Evans to Jack Kerouac......Page 81
1.2 The French Edition of The Americans......Page 84
1.3 Kerouac’s Introduction......Page 86
1.4 On the Road to Florida......Page 92
2 The Gasoline Station and the “Photographic Way of Seeing”......Page 95
2.1 Democratic Seeing......Page 96
2.2 Serious and Kitsch......Page 101
3 Conclusion......Page 106
References......Page 113
4 “We’re All in Our Private Traps”: Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) and the Decline of the American Motel......Page 115
1.1 The Subversion of a Noir Setting......Page 118
1.2 On the Wrong Side of Progress......Page 130
2 “Dwelling on One’s Losses”: The Motel and the House......Page 138
3 Conclusion......Page 148
References......Page 151
5 Roadside Chronicles: Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas (1984)......Page 153
1.1 Stories and Images......Page 158
1.2 Another Space......Page 163
2 Places, Strange and Quiet......Page 168
2.1 Roadside Attractions......Page 170
2.2 Dinosaur and Family......Page 174
2.3 Motel Chronicles......Page 178
2.4 Conclusion......Page 182
References......Page 187
6 Conclusion: America Revisited......Page 189
References......Page 195
Index......Page 197
