ABSTRACT

Geography's relationship with literature is no longer a disciplinary oddity. Seminars, special sessions in annual conferences, special issues of geography journals, and collective books see the light every year. The idea of approaching literature as a kind of alternative geographic epistemology emerged at a time when geographers became acutely aware of the formal discursive dimensions of geographical practice. This chapter appraises the benefits of the study of literature to deepen our understanding of multiple forms of geographical imaginations. It highlights the originality of studies which seek to broaden the field of literary geography by "stepping out of text", often with the help of insight from the sociology of literature. Many contributions, old and recent, illustrate the heuristic and epistemological potential of conceiving geographical imaginaries as mediators, interfaces or relays. Geographical analyses of crime fiction overlap with the developments of literary geography as a whole.