ABSTRACT
This essay reads hotel life in A Room with a View as a series of displacements to reconstruct the transcultural aspirations of Forster’s liberal humanism. I identify commonalities linking Forster and transcultural theory before interpreting the pension as a transformative space whose very failure to offer authentic Italian experiences effects transcultural awakenings when dramatic instances of falling precipitate characters’ transformations into Forsterian liberal humanists. Finally, I reflect on the limitations of Forster’s vision, which reduces transculturalism to a position of reactive critique, requires physical interventions by the earth itself, and demands constant movement to maintain the figurative groundlessness that Forster idealizes.
