Transcending the Scottish Postmodern City: Ken MacLeod''s Future Urban Geographies

Aliaga Lavrijsen, J (Universidad de Zaragoza)

Resumen: A place cannot exist if it has not been imagined, if it has not been perceived, as Alasdair Gray famously stated. Scottish science fiction (SF) goes a step further by emphasising the need not only to recognise and represent Scottish places, but also to recreate and to (re)imagine them in their possible futures. To (re)imagine Scotland and its places means to envision its potential spaces. Ken MacLeod is one of the figures who has successfully managed to set Scotland on the SF map. His novels Intrusion (2012) and Descent (2014) are remarkable examples of what some critics have called Transmodern fiction. Both are set in urban Scotland in the near-future and they portray new configurations of place. My analysis focuses on the interconnectedness of place as presented in the two novels, creating a new territory that transcends Scottish Postmodern urban geographies. In MacLeod''s fiction, a Transmodern urban place is conceived, where the glocal and the virtual meet in a new multifold reality without ever losing their local specificity.

Idioma: Inglés

DOI: 10.5209/cjes.68364

Año: 2021

Publicado en: Complutense journal of English studies 29 (2021), 45-53
ISSN: 2386-3935

Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MINECO-FEDER/FFI2017-84258-P

Tipo y forma: Article (Published version)

Área (Departamento): Área Filología Inglesa (Dpto. Filolog.Inglesa y Alema.)